Friends of Tarra-Bulga National Park
Website of the Friends Group – Information about working bees and monitoring projects. As well as flora and fauna pictures and descriptions
This little critter nearly went by unnoticed until we went back through some remote picks and spotted it here. It is an Agile Antechinus – Antechinus agilis. They mainly feed on invertebrates such as spiders and beetles. Like all antechinuses, the Agile Antechinus has a short and violent breeding season, after which the males all die.
A very common site in the Strzelecki Ranges, the Common Wombat – (Vombatus ursinus) is mostly nocturnal and shelters in large burrows. The single young leave the pouch around 6-9 months of age and follow the mother on foot until they are fully weaned at about 20 months old. They only produce one young every 2 years. They feed on grasses, sedges and tubers. Be on the look out for them on the roads at night, They have absolutely no road sense and are likely to run straight in front of your vehicle if startled.
We had a great turn out for the annual lyrebird survey on June 4thwith 28 volunteers turning up. This included 8 scouts from Sale and their leaders and it was great to see a number of new volunteers.
Fortunately the rain held off but windy conditions meant that listening out for Lyrebird calls was a little tricky. People in more sheltered positions were lucky to hear good numbers of birds calling but people in the outlying areas e.g. Ranger Craig (stationed at the depot) did not hear as much of a chorus of calls as he would have hoped. A number of the scouts were very excited at the number of birds they heard and did extremely well to locate their stations in thedark given at least one marker post had been pulled out of the ground and hidden in the scrub prior to the survey. Evidently the scouts had a great time as they indicated they would be back next year to have another go.
A superb first up breakfast was provided by the new proprietors of the guest house (Nic and Steve) as a follow up to their great effort for the annual friend’s dinner. Thank you to Loy Yang Power for donating some funds to support the breakfast. It is probably a good thing that the count only happens once a year given the early start but it is certainly a great event, with the highlight certainly being the experience of hearing the wake up calls of the birds as the sun rises in the rainforest.
If you would like to hear about upcoming activities such as the upcoming 2012 Lyrebird Count – please submit your details in the form below.
Footage of two Swamp Wallabies, Wallabia bicolor up to some hijnks in front of one of our remote cameras in the bulga park vicinity.
Wallaby Battle.avi
This presence of this Long Nosed Bandicoot ( Perameles nasuta ) is one of the many insights we are gaining about the habits of the Fauna of Tarra Bulga with the use of our remote infrared cameras. Long-nosed Bandicoots are active from dusk to dawn, digging cone-shaped holes in their search for insects, fungi and fleshy plant roots (tubers).
