Trapping Update: Paganoni Swamp and Keralup

We’re back to the animals now, unless some more cool plants or fungi turn up 🙂

The last two weeks have been spent trapping at Paganoni Swamp and Keralup and a successful two weeks it was.  The captures at the two sites went as follows:

Quenda: 4 at Paganoni Swamp, 15 at Keralup

Brushtail possums: 8 at Paganoni Swamp, 3 at Keralup

Brush-tailed phascogales: 3 at Paganoni Swamp

Bobtails: 1 at Paganoni Swamp

Rats: 3 at Paganoni Swamp, 24 at Keralup

The quite exciting development out of this trapping with the capture of the 4 quenda along the eastern boundary of Paganoni Swamp.  I’ve been trapping in this area for 3 years now and have put in approximately 2500 trap nights prior to this trapping and in all of that time I have only caught 3 quenda in that area.  So to capture 4 in one week is really exciting.  Exactly where the animals have come from is unknown at this stage, the two possibilities are that they have moved into Paganoni from Keralup by using the fauna underpasses (which quenda have been doing more frequently over the past 6 months) or they may be from Paganoni and have expanded the areas that they are using so that they are now encountering my traps.  There is a swampy area just to the west of my trapping grids where the quenda may be expanding from. Either way its really good to see them turning up in the area so hopefully I will see more of them when I come back to trap again in the spring.

Trapping 3 phascogales was also really nice, all three were female and they had not yet given birth, but they must only be a matter of days off from doing so now.

I’m starting at Walyungup and Cooloongup Lakes this week so it should be a case of lots more quenda and hopefully not too many rats.

Paganoni Swamp: its all about the fungi this time

I know this post is not about wildlife but bare with me 🙂

I’m back trapping again and I’ve nearly finished my first week at Paganoni Swamp Reserve.  One of the really nice things about my job apart from the cute animals is getting to see how the bush changes over the seasons and at the moment its fungi season in Paganoni.  Everywhere I’ve been this week there are a huge number of varied fungi that seem to be popping up everywhere.  Below are some of the more interesting ones:

Next post I’ll be back to the animals again.

Ninja Quenda

Things have been very quiet around this blog so far this year, mainly due to me being overrun with teaching commitments and family responsibilities which has meant that the fieldwork (fun) part of my job has been put on hold for a while.  Things will be getting back to being more fun on that front shortly, but in the meanwhile I was sent a link to an amazing series of photo’s of two male quenda fighting in a backyard in suburban Perth.  The photos were taken by Pam Cherriman and published online by her son Simon who is also a very skilled bird photographer.

The photos can be found here and are well worth a look.

My best underpass monitoring photos of 2012

Over the course of 2012 I had cameras monitoring the use of 10 different fauna underpasses across the southern Perth metro area.  Between them those cameras managed to take over 38,000 photos.  In amongst the thousands of photos of mice scurrying about there were a few gems, of which my favourites are below.

Its not just scurrying that the mice are into, sometimes it comes to some good old fashioned fisty-cuffs.

This fox spent about 20 minutes trying to get the mouse hiding behind the microchip reader before giving up (the mouse is to the right of the reader if you can’t spot it).

Its amazing that an adult western grey kangaroo will squeeze from nearly 70m of a 600x600mm underpass (nearly 100 times this year).

Sometimes 1 underpass just isn’t big enough for two feral cats.

Turns out that my microchip readers make a comfy bed for feral cats.

Southern heath monitor, just because they’re awesome animals.

One very nice sized dugite (perhaps I need to be a bit careful when I’m checking these underpasses).

That’s all from me for 2012.  I’ll be back with more fieldwork, more students and hopefully more interesting bits on information in 2013 (and a new baby as well).

 

 

 

 

Roe Highway: finally some quenda using underpasses

The last week of my trapping for 2012 was at the Roe Highway site, which tends to be a week of lots and lots of quenda and the site didn’t disappoint.  I had 64 captures of 32 different quenda for the week including 4 animals that were microchipped as pouch young back in the winter and are now independent.  I was also able to microchip another 8 pouch young so this site is looking as thought it will provide me with some very nice data on survival rates from late pouch life through early independence.  I also had 16 bobtails for the week and a small handful of rats and mice.

The big result from this site is really just how much the quenda are using the underpasses.  I’ve had cameras monitoring the two underpasses since July and in that time they have been used 438 times by quenda, that almost 3 times each day.  compared with the other underpasses in this study this equates to almost 100 times more use than the other underpasses.

Quenda using one of the fauna underpasses at Roe Highway

Mandogalup: females still in short supply

I’ve gotten a bit behind with fieldwork updates again, but now that I’ve finished for the year its time to catch up.

A few of weeks ago it was the turn of The Spectacles and Jandakot Regional Park, or the Mandogalup site, to be trapped.  It was another week of good numbers of captures with 21 bobtails caught and microchipped, 5 brushtail possums and 42 captures of 21 different quenda.  Of the 21 quenda that were caught only 3 were female which unfortunately continues to extreme male bias that I’ve reported on from previous trapping efforts.  All three females were also recaptures from previous trapping efforts as well so it appears that no new females are coming into the trapping areas.  Just as a comparison of the 21 bobtails captured 8 were male and 13 were female which is much closer to what we would hope to see in terms of relatively even sex ratios.  This lack of females, particularly at Jandakot Regional Park, also seems to be playing a role in the drop in numbers that I’ve seen in that area.  The graph below shows the estimated population sizes for the quenda populations in the 8ha trapping grids for the two sides of the freeway.  The population at the Spectacles has risen quite substantially since I started trapping, but the population at Jandakot Regional Park is following a fairly consistent downward trend.  The last time a female quenda was caught at Jandakot Regional Park was September 2011, with nothing but males since.

Estimated population size (with standard errors) for quenda in the 8ha trapping grids at The Spectacles (blue) and Jandakot Regional Park (red).

Brush-tailed phascogale update: everyone wants in on the nestboxes

I spent half the day yesterday at Paganoni Swamp Reserve with one of my honours students, Fernando Garcia-Solis, checking nestboxes and collecting phascogale scats for dietary analysis.  The good news is that after a period of several months where the nestboxes had very little use things have picked up in the last 6 weeks.

Brush-tailed phascogale demonstrating its climbing skills outside a nestbox

We found that 6 of the 31 nestboxes have been used by phascogales in the last 6 weeks and they kindly left behind quite a few scats for Fernando to analyse.  This bring the total number of nextboxes used by phascogales to 11.   However, its not just the phascogales that are showing an increased interest in the boxes.  Feral honey bees have been busy over the last couple of months and have taken over  3 of the boxes.  It turns out they also don’t like to be disturbed and will defend their hives quite aggressively.  In addition to these 3 boxes there was 1 other that had been used as a hive, but had recently been adandoned (the honey was delicious though) and 2 others that bees had started to construct hives in and had give up on.  If I am lucky enough to catch the bees in the early stages of invading a nestbox then I will prop the lid of the box open for a month which works very well in getting the bees to move on.

Its not just bees that the phascogales are having to contend with though as the cameras that are monitoring 2 of the nextboxes caught a black headed monitor raiding the boxes presumably in search of phascogales to eat.  I’m not sure that a black headed monitor would be able to to kill an adult phascogale, but juveniles would definitely be on the menu.  Thankfully both nest boxes were empty when the monitors stuck their heads in, but it goes to show that you can’t afford to let your guard down when you big enough to be someones dinner.

A black-headed monitor (Varanus tristis) raiding a nestbox in search of prey.

Apart from the bees and monitors there are a few curious possums around as well that have taken to checking out the nestboxes.  That little entrance hole really isn’t going to cut it for a possum though.

 

A young brushtail possum checks out one of the nestboxes for brush-tailed phascogales.

Walyungup/Cooloongup Lake: Doing my bit for cat control

The past two weeks I have spent trapping at Walyungup and Cooloongup Lakes in Warnbro.  This used to be a one week job, but with a huge increase in quenda captures and the large numbers of bobtails over spring I’ve needed to split the area and trap it in two halves.

It was another successful trapping in this area with 48 captures of 23 individual quenda, 63 western bobtails, 2 western bluetongues, 1 tiger snake, 54 rats, 7 mice and 2 feral cats.

The 2 feral cats were both ones that had been using the underpasses for at least the past 6 months, with one of them having taken to sleeping in the underpass as well in August.  The photo below shows one of the feral cats curled up asleep on the microchip reader where it stayed on this particular day for 6 hours.  At $6000 this would have to make it the most expensive cat bed in the world!  Both of the cats that were captured were taken to the Cat Haven in Shenton Park where they are assessed to see if they can be re-homed, or if they are too aggressive then they are humanely destroyed.

Feral cat getting comfortable in an underpass between Walyungup and Cooloongup Lakes.

Tiger snake captured at Walyungup Lake.

 

The death of a sole survivor

In case you missed it Tim Flannery published a beautifully written article in the Sydney Morning Herald on the weekend. The article deals with Australia’s last mammal extinction, that of the Christmas Island pipistrelle in 2009 and what it’s extinction says about Australia as a nation and a society.

The article can be found here and is well worth the read.

Panasonic Toughpad: a possible replacement for my Algiz 7

Panasonic’s have just announce the release of their Toughpad Android tablet in Australia.  The Toughpad  shares the same DNA as Panasonic’s highly respected (and rather expensive) range of Toughbook notebooks and looks like a very interesting alternative to my current Algiz 7 for entering data in the field.

The currently available Toughpad is the 10.1″ or A1 version with a second 7″ version scheduled for release in the coming months.  The specs on the currently available 10.1″ version are:

• 1.2GHz Dual-Core Marvell CPU
• 10.1” XGA 1024×768 Capacative TFT Display
• 1 GB RAM
• Stylus input
• 16GB internal storage with Micro SDHC Expanison port
• 5 MP rear camera with LED flash and 2 MP front facing camera
• GPS, Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n
• 3G capable with 21mbps HSPA+ compatible with Telstra, Optus and Vodafone networks
• Waterproof mono speaker and Mono microphone
• Micro USB 2.0, Micro HDMI, Docking connector, 3.5mm Headphone jack
• Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
• Software :
  • AuthenTec QuickSec
  • RedBend OMA-DM
  • McAfee Mobile Security (trial version)
  • Adobe Reader
  • Panasonic Utilities
• 4590 mAh Li-Ion battery with approx 10 hours battery life
• 266.3×17.5x212mm @ 993grams
• 3-year limited warranty, parts and labour

Compared with the Algiz 7 that I currently use in the field the Toughpad has a larger screen, faster processor, 3G connectivity (for continuous backup of data in the field when you have reception), is about half a kilo lighter, has a stated battery life of 2 hours more than the Algiz and a 3 times longer warranty.  The only downside is the 16GB of internal storage, but the microSD expansion slot will take care of that.  They are both rated to the same IP65 standard which should suffice for most conditions that you come up against when out in the bush.

On top of all that the Toughpad also comes with a RRP of $1499 which is a full $1000 cheaper than the Algiz 7.  Once Microsoft releases Office for Android in the coming weeks I will give it a test on my current Android tablet to see if it might be worth the switch, as the currently available office suites for Android really aren’t reliable enough to trust important data to.