Anita Sundstrom
NPA/WWF Western
Project Officer

It was eleven o’clock at night and I was lying very comfortably in the dark under a tree in Woomargama State Forest. There were a couple of gliding possums up in the branches and it was my intention to remain where I was until they took to the air. But the slamming of car doors announced that the rest of my spotlighting team was about to return to camp, so I got up and began running along the firetrail towards the cars. I couldn’t see a great deal as I had lent my torch to my friend Monty; and I was just falling into a creek when the engines started up and both 4-wheel-drives roared away. I chuckled at the excellent practical joke Mammals Team One was playing on me. Although I was sure that the cars would return shortly to pick me up, I set out on the walk back to camp.

Eventually I realised that I had in fact been genuinely forgotten. But the gibbous moon was up, it was a beautiful night for walking, and I couldn’t stop chuckling as I strolled along. The only bugger was that I had no light and so could not check out all the animals that were rustling in the forest around me. Oh well, oh well, nothing’s perfect.

Meanwhile, at camp, Monty was trying to return my torch to me. Presently it dawned on everyone that they had heartlessly abandoned me in the middle of the wilderness. A vehicle was dispatched and when I heard it coming I leant against a tree. Susan Davis and Ben Addison were my heroic rescuers, may their names resound in eternity. But the night was by no means over!

Around the campfire, debate raged over the identity of the gliding possums we had seen. I asserted that they were yellow-bellied gliders; others doubted this. I claimed great expertise and swore by my life that, yes, they were most certainly yellow-bellied gliders. A party was assembled to go and check. So, within minutes of returning from my adventure in the forest, I was back in the tray of a 4-wheel-drive, knotted together with about a hundred other surveyors in a seething sea of limbs. I reckon travelling along a stony road in the back of a ute in the middle of the night in the middle of the bush underneath a sky of stars with a bunch of laughing people is just about the most fun thing you can ever do.

Invigorated, we walked to the tree under which I had earlier been lying. One of the gliders was still there. Everyone gazed and gazed; we had a tremendous view. The weight of expert opinion came down against its being a yellow-bellied glider. The consensus was that it was a plain old greater glider. I wiped egg off my face all the way back to camp.

It’s amazing how much can happen in just three and a bit days. It would take a short book to relate all the goings-on at Woomargama. We saw frogs and bats and orchids and phantom wattles and antechinuses and possums and wombats and owls and the nominated-as-endangered swift parrot; and many of us made fools of ourselves around the campfire. Catherine Hulm dived into a freezing dam to rescue a drowning bat. Nigel Jones led us through tracts of prickly scrub to discover pristine pools and waterfalls in a hunt for brush-tailed rock wallabies. Clive Barker caught snakes in his hat and danced the dance of the small mammal. Averil Bones led us in song around the campfire. Janie White had too much sugar; and Bronwyn Englaro and Susan Davis did a terrific job, joining me in organising things.

Thanks to everyone who came for an unforgettable time!

Claire Carlton
Convenor