phascogale – Go Birding

Been a bit quiet on the posting front of late so thought I would put up a few recent sightings of note to try and get things moving again.

A couple of weeks ago I had a spare night so hit up Scott and we headed up the Hume looking for some furry critters and perhaps a frog or two. It has been raining heavily all day but the skies cleared as we arrived right on dusk in the Avenel district. We poked around a couple of farm dams before spotlighting along remnant roadside vegetation. This area has been largely cleared for farming but there are still mature trees along the roadside edges. Almost as soon as we started we spotlighting we found a Brush-tailed Phascogale – one of the main targets up here. It was down near the ground and ran up a small tree where it froze against the trunk and would not move allowing us some great photo opportunities.

Brush-tailed Phascogale

Moving on we found another couple of Phascogale and then the second main target for the night with a lovely Squirrel Glider down low feeding on sap. These gliders are endangered in Victoria with arguably less in the state than Leadbeater’s Possum. This animal allowed some good views and a quick photo or two before scooting up the tree. Victorian Squirrel Gliders have an amazingly bushy tail and are very distinctive.

Squirrel Glider

Across the rest of the evening we found a couple more Phascogale and another Squirrel Glider. As it had been raining there were many, many Banjo Frogs up and about but nothing more interesting. A final excellent sighting was a Phascogale hunting along branches, snuffling into nooks and crevices looking for insects. All in all a good night!

Brush-tailed Phascogale

Last weekend I went down to Dandenong Valley Wetlands which is a bit of my local weekend patch – I got there for a walk and a bit of birdwatching. Saw over 60 species of birds with a highlight being a couple of Rufous Songlarks which were new for me for the site. It was a warm day so I saw a number of Lowland Copperheads, a couple of which gave some good photo opps as they went about their business. They were quite warm and a bit feisty when their tails were tweaked.

Lowland Copperhead

It is no secret that I go out at night spotlighting quite often – this year I am up to 55 nights (somewhat sad I am keeping track) and while I do have some epic nights there are other nights where not much seems to happen at all. It is these nights where the owls aren’t calling and eyeshine is not coming that you need to keep your attention up as it only takes one moment to make the effort all worth while! Last Saturday night Scott Baker, Owen Lishmund and I decided on a rather late whim to head up to the Euroa district to look for Squirrel Glider and Brush-tailed Phascogale, camp out and then head back after some birding in the morning. The weather forecast was rather poor but it did seem we had a window. John Harris of Wildlife Experiences had let me know a couple of places to try around Euroa for Squirrel Glider which was our starting point. We zipped up the highway and arrived just on dusk in some excellent looking remnant habitat along a road easement which looked perfect with plenty of hollows in the older box trees. A mixed group of Hooded Robins and Jacky Winters and a Triller showed this might be worth more attention in the daylight sometime. We cracked a beer and waited for true dark but were assaulted by wave after wave of mosquitoes which was a theme for the whole night.

On dark we wandered up and down the easement spotlighting picking up many Ring-tailed Possums and a couple of gliders which turned out to be Sugars. There were plenty of frogs calling as well as many microbats which were probably feasting on the mosquitoes which in turn were feasting on us. We tried a few different areas but had no luck with either of our two target species. It was pushing midnight so we decided to run across to Whroo to camp the night. We were west of Pranjip when the moment came. There was a streak on the road – “#@!$ a Phascogale!” as I swerved and drove over the top of it. We pulled up and I was dreading that I had hit it but fortunately there was nothing on the road. A quick bit of spotlighting and we found a lovely Brush-tailed Phascogale propped in a tree looking down on us. A mad scramble for cameras and I managed a couple of frames before it fled – not as sharp as I would like but it will do! We were pretty stoked as we rolled into the Whroo campground which was also infested with clouds of mosquito. Unfortunately the bad weather hit in earnest in the morning so after poking around a bit we headed for home.

Brush-tailed Phascogale

Tag: phascogale

A few recent sightings

It takes one moment