Northern red-faced freshwater turtle, Emydura victoriaeis
A species of medium-sized aquatic turtle in the family Chelidae. The species inhabits rivers, streams and permanent water bodies across much of northern Australia.
Found on Australian Wildlife Conservancy Survey at the Bullo River Station fun times exploring the freshwater springs on Bullo River Station.
What a spot! Bullo Sands Waterhole whilst doing wildlife surveys with the Australian Wildlife Conservancy.
Bulo Station is situated close to the border of Western Australia, approximately 78 kilometres (48 mi) north west of Timber Creek and 115 kilometres (71 mi) north east of Kununurra. The Victoria River flows through the property. It is bounded by Newry Station and Auvergne Station to the south and by Spirit Hills Station to the north and west, and lies on the traditional lands of the Mariu people.
What does a wildlife survey involve.
This is a large eastern striped skink, which was caught in one of the trap sites, if you check out the other photos you’ll see several photos of a trap site, these are made up of 4 pit fall buckets dug into the ground and 6 funnel traps and 20 Elliot traps which are placed a bit further out (not seen in the photos).The idea is that any wildlife in that area will hit the green fence line and either go left or right along it, ending up in the bucket, or the funnel trap. Smaller mammals are baited with what looks like peanut butter protein balls inside the Elliot traps. The traps are checked early morning for any nocturnal animals that may have been caught and also to make sure they are recorded and released again before it warms up too much in the day. This will continue for 3 days and then a new site is made in a different location.
Over time this will cover a vast area of land which will be surveyed. Ecologists look at all the different types of habitat on where to put the sites, so they get great coverage on the amount of species they catch and record. These surveys are usually conducted annually and are important to work out how best to manage the land based on species increase or decline in population. There are many other wildlife survey techniques but I’ve only just explained the most commonly used one here.
Bullo River Station
Situated close to the border of Western Australia, approximately 78 kilometres (48 mi) north west of Timber Creek and 115 kilometres (71 mi) north east of Kununurra
Not bad!! Chopper dropped into this sweet spot at the top of Bullo sands for the night to deploy some camera traps and some general spotlight surveys….We managed to find a death adder not far from camp!!
JUST ON DUSK, this Black headed python decided to cross the road….not a good idea buddy!!!! So a rescue was needed, having worked with snakes for about 20 years this guy was one of the most defensive I’ve come across, usually they are pretty chilled out, and appreciate the rescue, but this one had other ideas! What a cool snake though! They often get confused with venomous snakes because of their slender black head, and tiger snake looking stripes. The other interesting thing is that they are python that lacks the heat sensing pits that most other pythons have which help them to detect mammals or endothermic animals…..so this is why the black headed python mainly eats lizards and other reptiles even snakes….pretty cool huh.
The BUNYIP.
The most commonly heard call of the Barking Owl is a double note ‘woof-woof’ which sounds quite similar to a dog’s bark. They also make an unusual ‘yowing’ vocalisation which sounds a bit like a person shouting for help. This sound is sometimes referred to as the ‘screaming woman call’! In the early settlement of Australia a screaming noise matching the barking owl’s description was credited and told to the settlers by the Indigenous Australians as the Bunyip. The Bunyip was said to be a fearsome creature that inhabited swamps, rivers and billabongs. Bunyips had many different descriptions but most were of an animal of some sort whose favourite food was that of human women. The cries and noises coming from swamps and creeks at night were not said to be the victims but actually the noise the Bunyip made. It is believed by many that the sound is of the nocturnal Barking Owl and that proves the location, the noises and the rarity of the Bunyip cries. See my youtube clip.
