Up at 5:30am and out counting by 6:30am. This time I was with Menna and Lucinda counting birds along 4 transects in the north of the site. It was very windy (but warm) so there were not many birds to be seen or heard. On the way back we had to count scats (poo) and identify the animals who left them. We found wonbat, devil, pademelon and Bennets Wallaby. On our final transect we also had to do measurements and descriptions of the habitat which involved lots of plant identifications. We now have a huge collection of plant pieces and have identified most with the help of various books, Menna and Lily.
Back home for lunch then out again with Menna, Chris, Julie and Matt to do more habitat surveys. This was fine until the last site which required lots of bushbashing through chest-high, tightly-packed shrubs. This meant that by the time I got home I was done in.
Wednesday 5 March
Our last early rise this morning! After breakfast Menna, Gail, Ian, Amelia and I headed out to do the bird, diggings and habitat surveys on the remaining northern transects. It was really cool and overcast with a strong westerly wind which made hearing the birds really difficult and also kept the birds inactive.
The vegetation surveys required a bit of bushbashing and I ended up falling over gracefully into the heath when I got tangled in the knee-high scrub.
Back home for lunch and a start on the data entry for the vegetation surveys which I will continue on my return to Hobart.
At about 3pm we left for Woolnorth in the extreme north west of Tasmania. We had a brief stop to look more closely at an echidna that was trying to cross the road.
Although Woolnorth had started as a huge sheep station it is now concentrating on dairy and the milk is powdered and sent to China. Mike, the CEO of the Van Diemens Land Company that runs Woolnorth, met us at the gate. I chose to be gate opener in his car (with Lucinda) as he took us to various vantage points and one of their rotary milking sheds to see the last cows go through for the day.
There we had a barbeque dinner whilst waiting for the Tassie Devils to appear for their dinner. After dark a freshly dead wallaby and tied it to a stake. Not too long after this the wild devils smelled it and were happily engaged in a feeding frenzy while we watched and took millions of photos. We were lucky enough to also have a Spotted Tailed Quoll come right up to the closed glass doors.
It was a long and tiring drive home on dirt roads watching for the huge population of pademelons and other wildlife so that we did not add to the road kill tally. The other car (scientists) stopped to move a pademelon road kill off the road so that the devils were not attracted to it and put themselves in danger. On examination they found a healthy foey inside just beginning to get its fur. There were the phone calls between cars in and out of reception as we had Julie and Garry with us who are wildlife carers. Julie decided it was probably old enough to try to save so when we arrived home Julie took on the responsibility and kipt it warm in a few beanies and gave it water every two hours through the night.
I got home and just collapsed into bed after midnight.
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