At the end of the first day some of the
team left, they were ecologists from other reserves but had stayed for the
first day because that is the hardest, as we have to dig in the fences for the
pitfall traps. Now we have two teams, one of three and one of four. Our daily
routine is to check the traps each morning at 6am. We empty the bait out of the
cages and the Gilbert traps and leave them so they are not set up. This is
because the mammals we are trapping are nocturnal and so are trapped at night ,
and we do not want them left in the traps in the hot sun. We again check the
traps in the afternoon at 3 pm and rebait, and reset the traps. The pitfall
traps stay set all the time. They can trap small mammals during the night and
trap reptiles in the day.
At our accommodation we are having problems
with the water. The pump from the bore has stopped and so we are left without
water for a couple of days. On Monday we buy a load of water and on Monday
night get our first shower. We do have a water tank so drinking water has not
been a problem.
The traps so far have been turning up small
reptiles, mainly skinks. We have seen a few larger monitors. We have caught one
or two house mice but the other team have already caught two hopping mice.
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| One of the large monitors seen |
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| Checking the teeth of a mouse to see if it is a field mouse or a house mouse |
