Camera Trapping

Morning wallaby conference.

Hmmm, what IS that?

   One of the cooler things that we get to do out in the bush is set up camera trap arrays. The cameras are fantastic (and expensive) pieces of technology, using infrared technology to detect motion and snap 3 successive photos. This is all well and good when an animal walks by, but as we found out these past few weeks, sometimes the cameras are too good at detecting motion.  The cameras we brought in back in April had been out somewhere else since February, and we were to offload the pictures and get them ready for the first big deployment of the year.  It didn’t take long to realize that some of these cameras were actually taking pictures of nothing, every few minutes, for weeks. This was because of their proximity to grass and other plants, and every time the wind blew it tripped the sensor. This means that we sometimes had over 11,000 images on ONE camera, mainly of grass blowing in the wind. And of course, we had to go through every image to see if there was anything significant caught on camera. As we scrolled, rapid fire, through the photos, we could literally see the grass growing. Out of those thousands of photos (probably near 60,000 from that session), we probably got a couple hundred animal sightings. Suffice it to say; we have resolved to completely clear ANY vegetation in the future that might trigger the camera. So far, our arrays have not yielded the thousands of pictures that we got previously, mainly due to the fact that we bulldozed a helicopter pad around the cameras.  That’s an exaggeration…we do value nature, but sometimes our sanity is also important.

Busted...

Another fun element of camera trapping are the photos of animals trying to figure out what that camouflage box is that’s strapped to the tree. More often than not, these are dingoes, birds, or wallabies (as you can see from the photos provided). Unfortunately we had one that got chewed and broken by a rather rude dingo. Normally this doesn’t happen, so you get pictures of mouths or noses right up close to the sensor, sniffing and licking.  Some of the camera sites also have lures attached, such as feathers, bits of CD, and our favorite, the ‘meow-meow’. These sophisticated black boxes emit a constant ‘meowwwwwwwwwww! Meowwwwwww!’ once you flip the switch. It sounds like a slightly tinny, wailing cat trapped inside a box. It is without surprise, then, that dingoes and other animals are curious about what that ridiculous noise is out in the bush. So far, we’ve had one stolen by a dingo that we think was bent on shutting it up (see photos). Luckily, it was found only meters from the camera. Sometimes the occasional human is even caught on camera...a rare and threatened species way out here. Other than the occasional curious creature, not a whole lot exciting was found on the cameras from this first deployment. However, this is an ongoing project, so stay tuned for further developments.  

Figuring out if the meow-meow is food. 

Sounds like a cat, must be food!

A species that's difficult to ID...

   

     

Fish Tales

   Ever since our arrival in the NT, we’ve been hearing about barramundi fishing.  It seems like everyone is an angler, and everyone knows someone who’s caught a ‘metre long barra’.  As amateur anglers ourselves, always willing to cast a line when available despite our less than stellar skills, we decided to pursue this activity once settled at Wongalara.  Even though barra is an excellent eating fish, we’re not supposed to catch and eat on the sanctuary, so we’ll settle for catch and release for now.  This is the tale of our first barra encounter.  Needless to say, there will be more.

Tegan's monster.

  Borrowing a couple of the managers’ old rods and lures, we took Frank out to the Wilton River, one of the major rivers that flow through Wongalara.  It’s actually where we get our drinking water from now that the rain water supply is used up.  Since none of the roads had been graded yet, the ride out towards the river was a bit bumpy, and after about 30 minutes came to a washout that we didn’t feel the need to try and cross.  The track runs parallel with the river not far away, so we parked and got geared up for some fishing.  To be honest, we expected a whole lot of nothing.  Personally, I’m not much of a fisherman, something I’ve proved time and again in the presence of Tegan over the past 4 years.  We have no technique to speak of, and whatever I looked up on the internet about how to fish for these monsters was pretty self explanatory: cast and reel slowly, with the occasional twitch of the line.  We threw our lines in the water, and within a few casts Tegan actually hooked what turned out to be a massive 80cm long barra!  We couldn’t believe it.  With such luck right from the beginning, it had to go downhill.  Not for Tegan, as she hooked 2 progressively smaller barra within the next 10 casts.  She was making it look easy.  I, on the other hand, got a couple bites but that was it.  Sadly though, all the fun and games came to an end and over the next couple hours there were no more fish to be had except one little catfish that I think ran into my hook and caught itself.  Tegan’s skill probably had the rest of the fish in the river talking and staying away anyway.  However, our first attempt could be considered a resounding success.  They’re out there, and they’re biting.  By the end of this adventure we might actually have some decent fish tales to tell.    

Reptile Trapping

   The date was approaching I had been dreading but looking forward to at the same time…. Reptile trapping… Considering I hadn’t swung a mattock for over 3 years and the days leading up had been far too hot to do anything other than read my book under the air conditioner, the next 2 weeks were bound to be a struggle. My positive outlook that I was going to be ‘fine’ to manage without Ethan began to change as my volunteer numbers went from probably 4 to definitely 2. I began looking at past years data and emailing previous people who had lead the survey to find out just how much trouble I was in. Another ecologist was quick to respond by telling me that they had been flat out the previous years and one of her volunteers had suffered heat stroke on the first day and to get the earliest start digging as possible! Just brilliant!

Northern Spiny-tailed Gecko

   Ethan and I collected the volunteers in Katherine from the always reliably late greyhound bus and headed back to Wongalara… Arriving in record time, they had set up camp before sundown; so far a good start. On the drive out we tried to answer as many questions as possible without crushing their spirits about what exactly was in store…

   Up at dawn to get the most digging out of the way by lunch, it was a slow start. By 1:30 we finally had 9 sites in and all jokes and chatter had subsided, as people were too hungry to talk! Being the team leader, I had to lead by example… not admit to my volunteers that I felt as if I could pass out several times during the morning and definitely hadn’t drank enough water even though I was on everyone else’s case to “drink more” and frankly didn’t really care about lunch as I would sooner throw up. Everyone showered, ate and had a bit of a lie down before heading out a few hours later to open the pitfalls and funnel traps. I think everyone got a great night sleep except for me… dreaming of reptiles and the chance that I had forgotten all my reptile knowledge.

   Ethan helped check half the traps the next morning then headed for Darwin to catch a plane to New York! The first day checking sites is always slow as your new volunteers ooh and ahh over the species that will later be so common you groan when you see another one in the pit… But this is why they are here, to learn and see all the species they have never seen before. We finally checked our last trap around 10:30 and took a short break before beginning the task of putting in another 9 sites with a man down! We were starting to get faster… or our attention to detail was waning. Either way, we were back at the homestead for another very late lunch. We had caught a lovely blind snake in the mornings' trapping and hadn’t had the time to properly ID him at the site so had bought him back with us. The task consumed the rest of the afternoon as we all tried to count mid body scales on a squirmy worm that smelled terrible! 

Blind snake

We were back from checking traps and opening the new sites around 7:30pm and the news that the managers had enough dinner to feed us as well was very much appreciated. The next three days just involved checking the sites morning and night so we managed to find a little bit of spare time for bird watching and a night time spotlight. On the third day we awoke to rain… not just a sun shower, but serious rain that fills pit buckets quicker than you can drive to the site! We left the homestead in a hurry only to discover that the rain was yet to reach our sites, but was only minutes away. Luckily the manager’s daughter had agreed to help us that morning and we split up and sped around all the sites checking them and putting the lids on the buckets. By the end we were all soaked through, except for Christina, who had managed to pull wet weather gear from nowhere! The sites remained shut for the rest of the day as the sky threatened more rain.

Baby goanna!

   Soon was to come pack up day, when we packed up each site and headed to the other enclosure to repeat the whole process again. We had smartened up this time and had got our set up time down to 30mins per site. The managers' daughter had once again agreed to help us out and arrived just in time for the digging- we had 11 sites in by lunch! These two set up days we stayed out and spent the rest of the day relaxing next to a small spring in the shade and bird watching up at a nearby wetland.

   We were getting towards the end of the survey and people were getting tired. I arrived in the kitchen one morning to find one volunteer with a bowl full of muesli already at the table. I switched on the light and heard him laugh behind me… He had realised that he had poured himself a bowl of ant-ridden muesli and hadn’t even noticed in the dark! I tried to convince him to throw it out, but he soldiered on and finished the lot! Needless to say, the ants had taken advantage of our hectic schedule and had managed to get into a lot of our food!  They're rather cunning in the art of war.

The trapping team

   The end of trapping was soon approaching and we looked forward to rolling up the last fence and covering the last pit fall bucket. I took the vollies into Katherine and we treated ourselves to Asian noodles and a tub of icecream! One of the volunteers caught the greyhound back to Darwin while Christina decided to stay the night so we could head out to Edith Falls the next day to hunt the elusive Gouldian Finch.

   All in all, it was a very successful two weeks! We caught enough animals to keep us very busy, ticked lots of new bird species, listened to good music and had many laughs. I can only hope the next group of volunteers is as good! Although next time there will be 5 of us, so easier times ahead.