Piccaninny Plains: where BIG rats are awesome.

   Hello again everybody and welcome back to our blog.  The past few months have been nothing short of hectic, with little time to do anything but work and spend weeks out in the bush, far from the Internet.  But we’re back at Wongalara now, and things have slowed down.  No more surveys on the horizon (until October at least), and little to do except try and catch cats (more on that later), and do our camera trapping work.  Our trip up to Cape York was successful, exposing us to the different landscapes, animals, and the people that drive AWC.  Piccaninny Plains is located on the northern Cape York Peninsula in Queensland, about 700km north of Cairns by vehicle.  It’s a unique property, far different in habitat than the escarpments, rocky outcrops, and woodlands that make up much of the Northern Territory, including Wongalara.  Piccaninny is 170,000ha (420,000 acres) of relatively flat land, made up of a combination of woodland, rainforests, wetlands, and grasslands dotted with massive magnetic termite mounds.  This combination of habitats creates a haven for many different animal species (officially estimated at over 400 mammals, reptiles, and birds).  More information is available on the AWC website here.  We were more than happy to go there for the fauna survey, as it meant that we’d be able to potentially see a lot of things we’d never seen before, including the spotted cus cus, palm cockatoos, and many others. 

We drove to Darwin over a couple of days, then flew into Cairns at night and got picked up by one of the volunteers.  We set off on the 700km drive early the next morning, up and over the rainforest covered hills behind Cairns, and then through drier woodlands before winding through hills again.  It was quite the drive, but we finally made it in about 10 hours. 

   The whole reason why we were asked to travel east and help with the survey was because a supporter event was being run at the same time, and the ecology staff had to be involved with those activities instead of devoting all their time to the survey.  Tegan ran the survey for about a week, while I was happy to help with whatever I could (aka digging holes).  The survey team consisted of 7 of us at any one time, digging in sites and coordinating show and tell activities with the supporters when we caught something cool.  These supporter events are organized as follows; they fly in a group for 3 nights, wine and dine them, and show them some animals and the property.  It’s a very big deal, since these supporters are able to see what their donations have gone towards, and have the opportunity to experience ‘conservation in action’ (trapping, feral control, fencing, etc.).  Plus they get a 2-3 hour chopper tour of the whole place, which itself is pretty good.

   Since Piccaninny was acquired in 2008 by AWC, there had been no indication of the presence of a very rare creature, the black footed tree-rat, until they caught one last year.  This was a very big deal (to quote one of the ecologists after learning they caught one: “No f*#@ way!”), since they are poorly described in the literature and not much is known about their behaviour.  They’re far from ‘just a rat’, because they’re BIG, HUGE, live in trees, with grey fur, big ears, and a long black tail with a white tuft on the end (see photo).

The science team was hopeful for more this year, but didn’t want to make any promises as we were trapping in a different area to the year before. We didn’t disappoint, as we were able to catch not one, but TWO.  For such a big rat, you would expect a whole lot of attitude. But for a creature that only eats nuts, fruits and seeds, what is there really to get worked up about? Everyone was very pleased, and each time a rat was caught, it was excitedly couriered to the supporter event so everyone could have look. You’d never see so many people getting giddy about a big rat, but there you go. 

   For the whole of the survey we were camped along the Archer River, one of the major rivers that run through the Cape in a small patch of rainforest, sheltered by the big trees and some dense vegetation. We had spent a bit of time exploring at night and during the day to try and spot some of the elusive rainforest creatures. After talk of giant pythons and spotted cus cus in the camp in previous years, we were a little let down by only seeing crocodile eye shine and a giant white-lipped tree frog. One night after we went to bed, we heard a very strange noise above our tent. We spied a common spotted cus cus (see photo) in the tree barely 10 metres away, making very strange gagging noises and dropping things next to our tent.  Apparently it may have been some sort of mating call, or just serious indigestion…we never heard the sounds again!

Another one of the unique creatures that inhabits Piccaninny is the Palm Cockatoo, a very large black cockatoo with a massive crest on top and red patch under the eye (see photo).  The thing that sets them apart, aside from their size, is their very distinctive behaviour and calls.  They’ve been known to drum on trees with sticks, shred branches with their enormous sharp beak, rock back and forth, hang upside down, etc.  Their calls are ear piercing, and they’ll sometimes whistle back to you if you mimic them.  We got to see a few up close and heard plenty around the place, their calls echoing through the woodlands.

   As part of the program, the supporters get to go out and check some of the trapping sites with ecologists, so they can see exactly what we do and get to know how AWC’s fauna surveys operate.  In an unlikely turn of events one morning, a cat was caught in one of the cage traps at a site.  This is rare for 2 reasons: 1) cats rarely go for bait balls of peanut butter and oats, and 2) cats normally avoid cages.  Sometimes the stars do align.  At least the supporters got to see ‘the face of evil’, as they have been described, and the offending creature was dispatched back at our survey camp.  When we dissected its stomach contents, we found the remains of not only a bait ball, but a sugar glider as well. We then had the brilliant idea to take the pee from its bladder, as we needed it to conduct our own cat trapping at Wongalara (more on that exciting activity to come!).  Yes, we were going to take cat pee halfway across the country in a nicely labelled container.

   At one point, after forgetting our GPS in another vehicle, Tegan and I had to make an impromptu visit to the supporter camp about 30 minutes away.  We were both tired and hungry, wanting to have dinner and go to bed instead, but without that thing we were going to be lost the next day trying to find a new trapping site.  We sped off into the night, trying to make it there and back before it got too late.  About 1km from our destination I came around a corner and narrowly missed a big snake crossing the road. We switched into snake catching mode immediately (Tegan more than me, really), came to a screeching halt, and ran back to a) make sure it was okay and b) if it wasn’t dead, make sure it wasn’t a lethal species before catching it and bringing it to show the supporters.  Luckily it was very much alive and a harmless Brown Tree Snake (aka Night Tiger).  They can be bitey, but with proper restraint are quite easy to handle.  Tegan held the nearly 5 foot long snake as I drove on to the camp.  We were literally meters from parking at our destination when we spotted another snake on the road.  Tegan jumped out and caught that one too, handing me the other one so she could take this new one.  Luckily again, it turned out to be a cranky yet harmless Slaty Grey Snake.  A snake in each hand, we left the ute behind and ran up to one of the parked vehicles to look for some catch bags, threw the snakes in, and ran up to the camp.  What an entrance.  Little did we know they had caught a 6-7 foot long Black Headed Python on the road that afternoon, which made our 2 look like shoelaces, but more snakes are always good.  Needless to say we earned a couple beers, leftovers from dinner that night (barra, rice, vegetables, AND dessert!), and made a few kids very happy.  Mission accomplished, and we even picked up the GPS.

One of the lagoons around Piccaninny

   As the survey and supporter event wrapped up, Tegan and I were fortunate enough to participate in the festivities for a day.  This involved having dinner with the supporters, enjoying drinks at sunset, and leading a chopper tour of the property the next morning.  We had been anticipating/dreading the chopper tours before we even started; there were plenty of people who got sick on these things once the wind kicked up, and you DO NOT want to be the tour guide who loses it on board.  It was a little daunting, having never been to Piccaninny before, but we were well coached by the survey team members who had already done it. Most of the time, people are happy to sightsee and don’t necessarily care about the specifics of the surrounding landscape, like what species of bird just called or exactly what kind of tree we just zoomed by.  The chopper ended up being the best part, even if we did have to be the guide.  We were able to see almost the whole property, land in a couple rivers, and see some of the wildlife around the place.  You get a good sense of the scale of the property when you’re up in the air, when pretty much everything to the horizon is part of the same place.  It’s really the best way to see any AWC sanctuary, since most of the time they have few roads and a lot of the country is pretty inaccessible.

   Our last day at Piccaninny was spent packing up and getting ready to leave.  The last traps were pulled down, and the last group of supporters were leaving that morning. We were going back to Cairns on the same charter flight as the supporters, so we said our goodbyes and left that morning on a little Cessna, flying over the hills and greenery of northern Queensland.  We spent a night in Cairns before heading back to Darwin and Wongalara, to get back to reality.  Alas, the fun trapping and traveling times are over for now, we’ve got our own work to do.