If you are lucky, you may see a Krefft’s Glider, Petaurus notatus, moving through the canopy….
There will be no guided spotlight walks until later in November due to unforeseen circumstances, so this may motivate you to do a self-guided night walk.
Grab a friend and a torch or two at sunset for a walk in the Mt Majura bushland. Slow down, relax and engage your senses. Don’t turn your torch on yet.
Enjoy the colours and shapes of sunset, and listen to the sounds of birds settling down for the night. You might hear kookaburras, cockatoos, crimson rosellas, currawongs and more. Look up in open areas and you might see microbats, flying foxes, and birds flying towards their roosting trees. The best time to observe silhouettes of birds, possums, gliders, bats etc. is about half an hour after sunset when the ground and trees become dark and the sky is still bright.
When it is too dark to see, turn on your hand-held or head torch and hold near your eyes, then look in all directions for pairs of glowing eyes. Many nocturnal animals which hunt or move around at night, have special eyes which multiply the amount of light the animal sees. Think of the animal with its sensitive night-vision eyes – once you’ve located it, move the beam to shine near it, so there is enough light to see but not hurt or blind it.
… or spot a hunting wolf spider with its highly reflective eyes …
If you are lucky, you might see a green-eyed fox silently, hungrily watching a lone joey or rabbit; a cat with large bright silver eyes slinking through the grass; an orange-eyed possum slowly emerging from its tree hollow; a kangaroo family silently grazing; birds sleeping among foliage or on nests; an owl on the highest tip of a dead tree; a morepork silently gliding; a tawny frogmouth camouflaged as a broken branch; lizards, spiders, insects camouflaged on tree trunks; wolf spiders with diamond-bright eyes hunting beside the track.
Not all animals you see at night have eye-shine, such as spiders in webs, which may be hanging above the track; millipedes, bush cockroaches, some moths. Be alert, be observant. Tune in to animal sounds – their voices, wings, foot-falls, and crackling of leaf-litter. You might hear the occasional owl or tawny frogmouth calling, or an echidna rustling through dry grass.
What you see and hear will vary with the timing of your walk, weather, phases of the moon, the seasons, how alert you are to the sounds of the bush, how observant you are, how quiet you are.
Any walk you do can be a slow, mindful, relaxing and enjoyable adventure when you walk on the wild-side!
….or hear the call of Southern Boobook owl, Ninox novaeseelandiae
Jenni Marsh
FoMM Walks coordinator
