EMPTYING THE BUCKETS

Our first finding: a scorpion.

After laying the traps in three areas, each a different vegetation type, we returned to camp. The time is spent eating lunch, relaxing and catching up on 'blogs'. During the late afternoon we returned to the three sites to check the contents of the traps. In our first bucket was a scorpion. I thought this was a good start to the afternoon as I hadn’t really seen many scorpions in the bush before. Over the three sites there were 33 buckets in total. Besides the scorpion they yielded two small lizards: a Central Bearded Dragon and a Nobbi Dragon, and about ten skinks. Now I know I am new to this but I thought a skink was a skink. Not so, there are numerous different types of skinks. We found two different types: Barred Wedgesnout Ctenotis and a Broad-banded Sandswimmer. As Anna excitedly thumbed through her reptiles of Australia reference book and compared them to photographs she had taken of other skinks Flic was able to show me the orange patch under the chin which indicated it was a breeding male.

One of the geckos from the buckets.

Tony, using long tongs to check the buckets.

After push starting the car we headed back to camp. In the morning we were to be short one driver, thus down a vehicle. This meant one person would not be able to go out in the morning. However they could stay up that night and go out with Jennifer and Bonny who were taking telemetry readings on a population of Mala, a small wallaby. This would go on at various times during the night so that the movement and range of these animals could be plotted. Always ready to see what else was going on I volunteered for this, normally staying awake all night would not be a problem for me, however I was a little worried with not having had much sleep the night before.

Arriving back at camp from checking the buckets I had time for dinner before being picked up for the night shift. We set off in separate cars but had only gone through the first gate when lightning strikes appeared in the sky. Because we were working with antennae mounted on steel poles this could be a problem. We returned to camp to check what the lightning storm was doing on the radar. It was decided to take a break and then at 3 in the morning have a look at the storm and see if we could resume. This gave me two hours sleep, enough for anyone!