Hi,
I've seen quite a lot of Feather-tailed Gliders in the past. Most were seen
from a forest clearing near my house (St Andrews, Vic.), where if you waited
quietly you'd eventually either hear them land, or see them silhouetted in
mid-glide; either way, it was then fairly easy to get a spotlight on them
and watch them for a while. I've seen them in Messmates, Silver Wattle and
Blackwoods - perhaps most often when they are flowering, but certainly not
only at those times. Sometimes they simply seem to be hunting invertebrates,
and I've seen enough on the ground to make me think that it might be quite a
regular foraging habitat. My sighting rate increased a lot when I got used
to their appearance in flight - sometimes they spiral quickly and they can
easily be misinterpreted as falling leaves.
Plastic telephone-junction boxes are a good place to look. I've seen a
couple of Feather-tails in those by day (not opening them up, just looking
up at the hole in which the cable goes, only to see a Feather-tailed Glider
having a look at the world), and also seen them coming out at dusk. I was
reminded of this recently when I lost my internet connection - it turned out
that it was because a Feather-tailed Glider nest in a local junction box had
damaged the cable. The Telstra technician who fixed the problem told me he
had encountered it quite a few times before. Most times he'd just find an
empty nest in the box, but sometimes he he'd find a glider or two in there
as well. When he did find actual animals, he'd put an empty junction box
next to the operative one, and put both nest and animal in that. He told me
that a few of his colleagues did the same thing, although they are not
officially supposed to use Telstra equipment in that way. So, if you come
across an apparently functionless dummy junction box right next to an
operating one, you could well be at a hot-spot.
Cheers, Danny
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