It takes one moment

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

Brush-tailed Phascogale