Reptile trapping, round 2...perfecting the art of catching lizards.

  After we arrived back from Pungalina, we had 3 days at Wongalara before heading back into Katherine to collect our next lot of volunteers for the July reptile-trapping program. It’s always fun to sit at the bus station and watch the people come off and guess which ones are with us. Usually they are the ones looking eager and with the most amount of luggage out of anyone on the bus. These three lived up to expectations each arriving with a rather large backpack and a swag each! Hmmm, where were we going to fit all this stuff??!!! The zip on the canopy of the ute had broken that morning and we had already picked up all the food! This was going to be a tight squeeze. We managed to fit everything in, taped and pinned the canopy closed and tied one of the swags to the top of the ute with the spare tyre. We reassured the troops that their stuff ‘should’ make the trip but would be completely covered in dust. They half smiled back, not knowing if we were serious or not.
  Prior to this, we had gone through the stress of ordering all the food for 5 people for two weeks. A fairly easy task until you throw in some vegetarians and strange dietary requirements… One of the volunteers this trip didn’t eat grains… Ethan and I looked at each other puzzled… well, what does she eat?! Apparently fruit, vegetables and strong coffee and lots of it! In a place where fresh fruit and veg is a bit of a luxury item, this was going to be interesting.

We headed out of town getting to know each other and stopping in a couple of places for photo opportunities and to check all the gear was still with us. Arriving at Wongalara in good time, everyone was eager for the survey to start.

Up early the next morning we headed out to put in the sites. We had even managed to get an extra set of hands from an older gentleman that has been staying at Wongalara for a month. This time the sites went in easily and we were back at the homestead for lunch!

  The rest of the week sailed along easily, we were capturing a good variety and number of creatures. Ethan and I worked great as a team, and he even ran the survey for me while I went into Katherine for a medical training course. The official AWC photographer also followed us around for a lot of the survey so you might just be seeing us in the next issue of Wildlife Matters (AWC's quarterly magazine).

  We found ourselves with a lot more spare time this trip and treated the volunteers to some bonus trips to nice spots around the sanctuary. We attempted to watch the full moon rise and the sunset at lost city but because of all the clouds around, we were treated to a magnificent sunset instead!

Tawny Frogmouth

  It was great to have so many hands this time round and everyone was rather relaxed and ready to take on anything. The volunteers decided with absolutely no encouragement from us that they wanted to put in all 18 of the main road sites in the one day so they could have a spare day at the end for more exploring… So it was decided, 18 sites was the target and we would push on until they were all in. We stopped after 15 sites and headed to one of our favourite nearby spots, Saw Mill Springs to cool down/read/sleep through the heat of the day. The rest of the sites went in the afternoon leaving everyone feeling pretty pumped, but tired and stiff. The rest of the time sped by quickly and we had the unexpected luxury of having to find people things to do! After a fairly slow week with captures we were ecstatic to catch our first juvenile rat in a pit fall since we had arrived.

  The reptile survey allowed us to really try out the new lenses that we had bought just before Pungalina and were pretty happy with results… Thanks Jimmy for the camera! Ethan even managed some great photos while we were out spotlighting (see Tawny Frogmouth photo).

  And just like that, we were on our way back to town and another reptile survey was over! Only one more for the year, time seems to be flying!!