Still coming down from the buzz of seeing my first Letter-winged Kite, I decided it was time to head back into the Central Highlands to look for Leadbeater’s Possum and other furry targets. I hadn’t had a chance to get out to see Leadbeater’s Possum this year so I decided it was definitely time to rectify that. Dan Ashdown (one of the discovers of the Letter-winged Kite earlier in the week) met me at the station and we headed east. We poked around Tarago State Forest and Reservoir not seeing particularly much but were stopped in our tracks as yet again this area of forest was closed due to a car rally!! So we drove a few other areas with the highlights being large numbers of Lyrebirds running off the sides of the roads.
It was starting to get dark so headed in to Powelltown to pick up a burger which we took back up the hill, sitting on the edge of a devastated logging coupe where a juvenile Sooty Owl screamed incessantly from across the valley. Rohan Clarke caught up with us and at our second stop we came across a few Leadies which gave good views but would not stop for pics. There were a couple of bats flitting around here with Gould’s Wattled Bat and Eastern Falsistrellus (which I still need a confirmed sighting of!) picked up on the bat detector. Over the next few stops we steadily picked up more Leadbeater’s Possum and other cool stuff like Bobucks, Sugar Gliders, Agile Antechinus and Bush Rat. The Leadies were quite reactive and gave a good show of their diagnostic squirrel like movement and a couple of them even propped for a happy snap or two. Eventually we found the only Greater Glider for the evening sitting in a mountain ash. A distant Boobook caused some confusion until we got better views – it was variously called Greater Glider, Sooty and Powerful Owl until we got our act together!
Leadbeater’s Possum
We ended the night at a very recently cleared and burnt logging coupe right in the middle of the area that supports high densities of the Critically Endangered Leadbeater’s Possum. The devastation in these areas is absolute with the so called “habitat trees” that are left behind killed and blackened by the followup high intensity burning of the coupes. We need a Great Forest National Park to protect this area, the animals that live here, to protect our water supplies and to as the best carbon store in the world. To continue to clearfell this area is criminal. Somewhat deflated we headed home, dodging wombats and swamp wallabies.
Leadbeater’s Possum