A few details which may be of interest regarding some spotlighting on
Saturday evening in Tallaganda State Forest, which is an hour's drive
south east of Canberra. The forest is tall euclaypt, perhaps described
as wet sclerophyll, some of it has been thinned out for forestry
purposes. We were looking for owls and mammals between about 6pm and
8pm between Lowden Forest Camp and the road back to Rossi - perhaps 5 to
10 km. It was close to a full moon so very bright.
We saw 12 Greater Gliders in total. At the last spot we stopped, the
turn off to Lewis Camp Fire Trail, we also saw 3 Common Ringtails.
There were also 2 Powerful Owls at this spot (which was very exciting
for us, as most of us had never seen these before).
One thing we noted regarding mammal behaviour was how little the Greater
Gliders seem to be affected by the Powerful Owls flying around within 10
metres of them. The Gliders were very high in a sparse tree and we
could clearly see their silhouette from the ground, yet they didn't move
for cover when the Owls came past. One of the three Ringtails was also
up high and it clearly hugged the branch trying to be inconspicuous.
This made us think that Ringtails must end up as Owl food a lot more
often than Greater Gliders do.
A wonderful night out
============================================
John Goldie
Communication Systems
Airservices Australia
GPO Box 367 Canberra
ph 02 6268 5009
============================================
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