Herping Trip # 3 - Back to the Mallee

[Southside Morelia]

Awesome pics jordo, what camera do you use?

That grasshopper.....Is that a "foreskin hopper" poking his head out? :shock:

lol...it just reminds me of something!

 

[Cheesecake]

G'day Jordo,

Finally decided to join the forum! Great pics - wish I had been there. The first one is of Limnodynastes fletcheri (Barking Marsh Frog). Can distinguish from L. tasmaniensis by light purple-brown patches behind the eyes.

Dave.

 

[chrisso81]

Great pics, love the Burtons.

 

[jordo]

G'day Jordo,

Finally decided to join the forum! Great pics - wish I had been there. The first one is of Limnodynastes fletcheri (Barking Marsh Frog). Can distinguish from L. tasmaniensis by light purple-brown patches behind the eyes.

Dave.

Welcome Cheesecake, I'm glad you're finally coming to terms with your name :lol:

 

[jordo]

Awesome pics jordo, what camera do you use?

That grasshopper.....Is that a "foreskin hopper" poking his head out? :shock:

lol...it just reminds me of something!

:lol:
I've got a Panasonic DMC-TZ2.

 

[Cj3cooper]

very nice jordo, but alas no jewelled geckos for you but nice whip snake!! we didnt get much in murray-sunset except for a cool little bandy-bandy, billiatt was pretty quiet as well, had quite a few juvie sand goannas which was cool. i went up to gluepot to jelp lisa after we finished at billiatt, ended up with a ringed brown snake on the last day, wicked cool!

coops

 

[jordo]

very nice jordo, but alas no jewelled geckos for you but nice whip snake!! we didnt get much in murray-sunset except for a cool little bandy-bandy, billiatt was pretty quiet as well, had quite a few juvie sand goannas which was cool. i went up to gluepot to jelp lisa after we finished at billiatt, ended up with a ringed brown snake on the last day, wicked cool!

coops

We didn't get many gex at all, an intermedius, a few beadeds but nothing like at sunset last time, my theory is all the massive scorps had been eating them :lol:
Yeah Shannon just told me that earlier, we only got 4 snakes for the whole week, 2 whips and 2 blind snakes

 

[moloch05]

Very nice, Jordo.

Looks like you had great success. I particularly like seeing some of the obscure species of skinks. Finding Desert Skinks would be great! Did you see any active at the site or were they only found in the traps? That Narrow-banded Sandswimmer was also a beauty.

Regards,
David

 

[jordo]

Very nice, Jordo.

Looks like you had great success. I particularly like seeing some of the obscure species of skinks. Finding Desert Skinks would be great! Did you see any active at the site or were they only found in the traps? That Narrow-banded Sandswimmer was also a beauty.

Regards,
David

Yeah we did well for skinks, all the desert skinks were in traps, I was stoked with the sandswimmer, it was one of the last traps for the day after not catching anything different for a while.
Whip snake was also good like that, we'd had a big night the night before and luckily enough the next day we only got about 8 animals so we could get back early and rest, but we still managed to get a new species

 

[Cj3cooper]

the sandswimmer looked great, ill post some pics from western murray-sunset and from billiatt and maybe some more from gluepot. we had a fairly slow last week. didnt catch a single gecko in the final week at gluepot, but then again it was cold a raining on some of the days :lol:

coops

 

[Viridae]

3rd year zoo jordo?

Great pics! You going to VHS expo?

 

[Cheesecake]

Hopefully you have more luck at Nanya next week! If you get a chance, go spotlighting at night and see what you can pick up. Are you staying on the station or elsewhere?

Dave.

 

[TANN-MANN]

any chance of seeing the Drift fence/Pitfall array set up, i'm currently undertaking a field survey through the university of new England, and am up to the trapping stage now that all the rain has buggered off:?, just curious as to how you have done it...not that it will make much difference with mine considering its all ready to go.

i'll be sure to post pics of what i get later on after i finish the report

cheers
Andrew

 

[Cheesecake]

Hi Andrew,

Here's a diagram of a pit line for the Mallee project looking at it from above. Each line consists of 10 20L round plastic buckets spaced at 4.5m intervals, 40-50 galvanised pegs (5mm gauge) and a 30cm high x 50m long flyscreen drift fence buried at the bottom.

The photo shows a section of trap line with a corner in the fence between buckets. This enables you to tension the fence every few metres by turning the pegs.

David.

A note before anyone tries this at home: animal ethics and scientific permit approval is needed from your state Parks and Wildlife, environment department or EPA before trapping, even if doing it on your own property.

 

[TANN-MANN]

Hi Andrew,



A note before anyone tries this at home: animal ethics and scientific permit approval is needed from your state Parks and Wildlife, environment department or EPA before trapping, even if doing it on your own property.

and the NPWS Scientific research permits are buggers to get...took me 4 months, I rang them and they said, oops its been sitting here someone must have over looked it during processing lol. ethics on the other hand, well being affiliated with the uni swings it your way a bit.

cheers
for the photos, mine is on a much smaller scale considering i'm sitting them in between rocky outcrops, i'm not digging that many