2005 Field Trip - April/May

Purnululu AFTER THE FIRE AHHH it all got burnt!!! Yes ALL my sites got burnt in October, so sad, all that lovely thick spinifex. All those poor little desert mice. Thats not to say that fires are bad, just in OCTOBER when it burns EVERYTHING!! Well 2005 is now a year to determine whether or not they all do 'JUST GET BURNT' as some loser suggested was all I needed to write for my thesis. And then there were more fires in April, but we won't talk about them just show cool pictures of FIRE.

Results? Well, capture rates were low in all the sites. EG no desert mice were caught and rock rat captures were down from 5 per day to only 2 over six nights. If that's not significant then I don't believe in statistics. So we moved to the few patches of old thick spinifex that remain in the Wickham uplands. (Some of which then got burnt! But we won't dwell on that.) And there we found our Romeo! What a fella, what a desert mouse. Loved that spin, fed on it all morning and night.

So April was probably the smelliest trip so far, what with brother and sister team, Gina and Stu, but at least they worked hard. Yvonne's ability to keep her make up neat and unsmudged despite the heat and dust more than made up for the others and Richard kept the beard till we got back to town. Walardi camp was beautiful, and the bird bath kept us entertained throughout our siestas, we even photographed some budgies!! And Lots and lots and lots of finches. Half way through the field trip the vollies tried to stage a revolution, something about not getting enough dessert mice and saving gay whales. Well clearly I was abusing my volunteers, working them too hard and had to come up with a compromise quick smart, so I tripled their pay and can gave them an icypole, a good deal I reckon. The Good and the Bad? Well I'll steal stu's words here - The sunsets and sunrises each day a burst of purple and vermillion, but the heat, the heat was hot hot hot hot hot hot - but Grevillea Ck was deep and the monitors kept coming.

Disasters for the trip were basically car based, poor old henry but he's still chugging along. And now with THREE spare tyres getting 7 flats in 2 months won't be too problematic!?£()!"£$

May, at Piccaninny and the Pilots

Once again everything was burnt, including the buckets. Very sad as most lids were melted and a few animals had been caught over the wet season. But it didn't burn our gorgeous campsite by Piccaninny Ck With a great big orange tent kindly lent by the LaneCove/Willoughby SES and a pit toilet (and toilet roll holder) kindly built by rangers Tim and Paul the camp was more than comfortable. Particularly with the campfire and stars at night. Piccaninny remote camp was made even better with our friendly visitors the Emus and millions of Budgies and guess what, hardly any corellas!!!!

Vollies this trip started with four but Mark nicked off once he'd collected his poo. (Mark is analysing the scats of the Desert mouse to determine what they are eating, mostly spinifex I think). I was then left with the three girls, Alex, Jen and Sandra and everynow and then we put the odd pilot to work on their day off (thanks for the showers boys). What a ball we had, pencil dancing as the sunset and the full moon rose behind the massif. How well we ate - any chefs out there you will get preference as volunteers, please apply, it worked so well this trip thanks Sandra (thats not to say we don't eat well anyway, pancakes, scones, african curries, carribean soup...mmm yum) Just a quick note to chopper pilots - no ice cream?? next time there will be more than just an esky going missing. We won't mention what else happened on that stealth mission.

Once again captures were low in the sandplain because of the October fire. A few animals moved into the burnt areas such as delicate mice, dunnarts and some some geckos but we had to go to new sites to track down the elusive western chesnut mice, commonly known as the Kelly gang. Ned Kelly proved to be as elusive as his namesake and after tracking him through thick acacia scrub we surrounded him for two nights but it wasn't till I saw him move between spinifex clumps that I was able to pounce and amazingly I caught him. See the picture and realise the amazing feat considering all that spinifex I'm lying on!

Finally, we can't forget to pay tribute to the animals that allowed us to catch them, particularly little Testiculi, the stripedfaced dunnart who had the tiniest little testicles we'd ever seen.

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