Week 7 of Arid Recovery

On Monday morning we had a mission, to trap Sepia to switch the GPS collar (which had been taking GPS fixes for 2 weeks) for her VHF one (which only emits a signal). But finding Sepia was not as easy as I was hoping it would be. In total we ended up walking 8 km before we found her, and not in a one holed burrow like I was wishing for…but at least she was in a warren with most of the holes accommodating for a burrow trap (after a little sculpting). Unfortunately we were pretty sure that one of the traps would catch a sand goanna as we had just watched it scarper down the hole as we walked up to the warren! Not ideal! If Sepia tried to exit via that burrow it may already be occupied, and therefore closed. Luck however was on our side… again, Sepia had been enticed into a trap by the chicken necks, as had Mr sand goanna - as predicted!

Hello again Sepia. She clearly can't resist chicken necks. 

After Sepia’s turn of wearing the GPS collar, next was the turn of Koombana…a rather daunting task as Koombana is known to misbehave by evading our attempts to find her! After many hours spent searching the Northern quoll expansion; going up and down countless dunes on the razor, getting up to a high point, turning the razor off to listen for Koombana, after about the 100^th attempt, I frustratingly did not succeed in the hunt for Koombana. It seems the adventurous Koombana has not changed her ways and Koombana and I have fallen out big time.

This week really turned out to be a quoll dominated week, whether it be fieldwork (finding and trapping Sepia or searching for Koombana) or office work (looking at the results of  Sepia’s GPS collar (which unfortunately didn’t show an area where Sepia likes to hang out the most within her range, which we were hoping for). But I did manage to do some other, albeit slightly less scientific, field-work…foraging underneath the trees outside the AR office. And no I have not taken up eating wild mushrooms you’ll be pleased to know (but I’m sure some of you wouldn’t be surprised if I had)! Kim (AR’s education and Science Officer) and I were collecting dead leaves, seeds and whatever interesting natural material we could find to make animals, such as an echidnas out of pine cones, for the AR table at Roxby Downs market. A genius idea if you ask me! Turns out on Saturday at the market, which I assisted with, the kids loved the craft (, maybe even as much as I did – see below the collection that I made). 

From the back to the front; the thorny devil, steggasuarus, sturt desert pea and echidna I created in between helping the kids. The Sturt's desert pea I made has actually inspired the next market day craft...They'll be making sturt desert pea cards like the picture I created  except painting the leaves red and the stones black.

The craft table laid out with the natural material Kim and I collected, before the children got creative. I wish I'd got a picture of the table after! 

One of the children creating a thorny devil (a native Australian reptile).

Next week I’m off to the APY Lands to assist in the annual trapping of black footed rock wallabies which I have been excited about for weeks! I’m also hoping to find a thorny devil (Moloch horridus) (a small reptile with thorns, funnily enough! And one of our animals we made on the AR market day stall this week)…Fingers crossed they won’t be as hard to come across as the mulga snake, which took me 4 weeks to see! 

 
A red jewel bug (Choerocoris paganus).

Tree dtella gecko (Gehyra variegata) found on the dunes one muggy evening.

Northern Spiney-tailed gecko (Strophurus ciliaris).This species of gecko had a bright yellow mouth and as wel as a spiney tail has a spines above their eyes like eyelashes!

Northern Spiney-tailed gecko (Strophurus ciliaris) in black and white.