Sixteen Members and Guests participated in our night spotting walk at Moggs Creek Nature Reserve on 16th May. A warm and cloudy evening but luckily without the threatened rain started with the lighting of a BBQ fire and subsequent cooking. With dinner consumed we headed off on our search for creatures of the night.
We hadn’t walked far into the forest when we heard the first calls of the Yellow-bellied Gliders (YBG) which were one of our target species. A series of further calls and the thump of a glider landing on a tree were heard before one was spotted high in the canopy. We were able to watch it climb the tree and then to everyone’s delight we saw it “fly” across the tree tops. Despite hearing other calls this was the only YBG we saw and no Sugar Gliders were seen. We also spotted Ring-tailed and Brush-tailed Possums and the Powerful and Boobook owls were heard calling.
On returning to our starting point the mothing sheet set up by John Lenagan had attracted a variety of moths including a couple of rather large species.
Attendees were enthralled by the moths and it brought a lovely evening to an exciting close.
Keith McLean
Photographs John Lenagan and Rob Shepherd