I know it’s been quite some time since I contributed to the blog. It’s been hard to decide whether to keep it going or not but I’ve decided that it’s time to give you all an update on what’s been going on in the last 9 months or so. I know a lot of people commented about our lives being such an amazing adventure and I’m going to do my best to make sure that this continues! Everyday I think about the trips that Serena and I did and had planned, so all I can do is try and make these reality, even if it’s just me.

In the second half of last year I decided it was time to dig my teeth into some field work. After a quick trip to visit WA friends in August, I had my first encounter with a wild Tassie Devil during a week long visit to hang out with Toby down in Hobart. Toby and I met in WA many years ago but he has moved to Tassie to study. We went up to assist with a devil trapping program near Freycinet and managed to trap a tiger quoll and one devil that unfortunately was heavily impacted by the facial tumour disease, very confronting but interesting to see given I’ve heard so much about the disease over the years. Other than the trapping we also visited Bruny Island and completed the quoll set for Toby and I with some spotlighting for eastern quolls. We also enjoyed the typical Tassie array of whiskeys, oysters, wines and cheese, and a spot of fishing or some squids off the jetty on Bruny.

I returned to Melbourne and we had our first Finlayson camping trip in many many years to Gippsland to celebrate our birthdays (Mum, Jane and I). As there are now additional fur children in the family this was to a dog friendly camping ground down in Gippsland called Tarra Valley which provided plenty of entertainment for all. Despite the odd downpour, it was a fun week and certainly nice to be hanging out with the whole family.

In early October I left Sydney with the desert ecology crew for another adventure to the Simpson Desert. I met a bunch of new people on this trip but also a few familiar faces from my time in Sydney or from the trip I did to the desert in April, including my PhD supervisor Chris Dickman, the labs resident logistician Bobby (accompanied by his two eldest Ashleigh and Cooper) and honours student Tamara. This was a three week trip and was an amazing time in the Simpson due to the large amount of rain that had recently hit the interior. Despite the inability of one of the Toyota Hiluxes to cope with the conditions (long story), this was a fantastic three weeks jam packed with so many animals, stories, limericks, a whole lot of fun, mosquitoes, good company and memories….just what I needed. The desert had definitely come alive with all the rain and the crew on this trip made it a special few weeks. There were too many amazing pics from the trip so check out the album  here:  https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1124110314292250.1073741857.215607685142522&type=1&l=c2bb5218af

On returning to Sydney I bumped into a Sydney uni friend, Tom, who was doing dingo research out in the Tanami desert and he was still looking for someone to tag along on his next trip….good timing me!! This was a short trip, firstly to Alice Springs, where we collected a range of gear from Tom’s old boss, and then a drive out past Yuendumu (a place where Serena had been to work on a dog spay program during her uni degree) and into the Tanami. I’ve never had the chance to get out to these parts so I was quite excited about the prospect of exploring a new area! The Tanami is one of the last strongholds for wild bilbies and was also where Mala (a type of hare wallaby that is now extinct in the wild) were re-discovered many years ago.  Camping under the stars in the Tanami desert was just incredible, certainly big sky country out there!

After another brief stint in Melbourne, I hit the road again to join my old sparring partner George, in some monitoring surveys for a wind farm, just near Cooma NSW. The main concern for wind farms in this area is the potential impact on eastern bentwing bats that fly through the area. Luckily at this time of year the likelihood of finding this species is low and thankfully we didn’t find any bats that were impacted by the windfarm. So I mainly just opened gates!

In early December, after a trip to Adelaide for the day/night cricket test and the obligatory ‘Jude and Mike tailor-made winery tour’ to the McLaren Vale, I crossed the Nullarbor again to join a research trip from Murdoch University conducting bat surveys around the Mt Gibson area of WA led by Diana, a PhD student of a friend from NZ, Bethany who is a wildlife vet at Murdoch Uni. The surveys were to investigate baseline disease levels in the microbats of the region. We visited two sites in the area, one owned by Bush Heritage, and one by Australian Wildlife Conservancy, both of which had some beautiful bushland and lots of bats! We were mainly trapping bats with mist nets that we’d all set up on sunset which made for some fantastic sunset viewing, arguably the best time of the day out in these parts! Both sites also had plenty of amazing birdlife, including malleefowl and major mitchell cockatoos, that features in the logo that Serena designed for our around Australia adventures.

After a few weeks over west I was back to Melbourne in time for the family Christmas gatherings, some time down in Rye with Pete and Kia from WA, and the usual shenanigans at the cricket on Boxing Day.

Shortly after the cricket I hit the road north towards the NSW central coast to hang out with the Sydney crew at Smiths Lake. Smiths Lake is a university research station and my good mate George from Sydney makes a regular booking here each summer to look for all the amazing critters that inhabit these parts and re-unite familiar faces from various work or study groups that we’ve been part of over the years. The usual is relaxing during the day with a bit of snorkelling or swimming in the lake, and then spotlighting adventures, fairly typical of a collective of budding ecologists.

After Smiths Lake, I spent a couple of nights on the central coast with the McGilchrist/Pfaeffli clan who were staying in Anna Bay and then had a few days of work in the Southern Highlands with George, spotlighting koalas, well it was meant to be but unfortunately we didn’t find any koalas. Highlights included a pair of calling juvenile Sooty Owls, numerous greater gliders, sugar gliders and the red-crowned toadlet, or red capped froglet as it is now known! One night we also had a celebrity visit from our mate Morton who was back in NSW for a break from his work up in the Kimberley.

The next trip was a week on Flinders Island, off the north coast of Tassie with Toby and Nat. I’d been lucky enough to get to King Island the previous year with Serena so was keen to check out the other big island of Bass Strait. Flinders Island has some stunning scenery, and if the weather is rubbish on one side of the island it’s easy enough to escape to the other side. Toby and Nat had sussed out all the cool spots on the island and we had a great week snorkelling, hiking, fishing and camping our way around the island.

In early February I moved up to NSW to start a job as a team leader with the NSW government conducting surveys throughout national parks using camera traps as part of a program called WildCount (http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/animals/wildcount.htm). I’ve mainly been based in Coffs Harbour but have spent time around Armidale, the Byron Coast and national parks and conservation areas right up to the Queensland border and am now based in Sydney. The fieldwork has been to many amazing parks throughout northern NSW with stunning scenery and an array of amazing critters!

In between I’ve managed to squeeze in a couple of trips to the west for weddings, 40ths and farewell parties, a few days back in Melbourne, a trip back to Roxby for the 20-year celebration of the Arid Recovery Project, a few Wallabadah spotlighting trips, catch-ups with friends in Perth, Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney and some koala wrangling in Gunnedah, so its been a busy few months. I also had a visit from Jane, Ramsey and the family to Coffs, and have spent most weekends doing something fun and adventurous.

 

So life hasn’t been dull and I am so incredibly grateful to all the support that have had from everyone who has come to visit me in Melbourne, taken me in during one of my interstate visits, provided a shoulder, hung out, drank whiskey with me, or just checked in to see how I’m doing.

The next few months are shaping up to be quite the adventure with a trip through the Kimberleys, and some overseas travel to Scotland, Ireland, Norway and Italy, so stay tuned…..