What do you get when you cross a lizard, with a frog, and a possum? You get the organisms that were collected from an overnight trap line! The line was set with pitfall and funnel traps at our collection site visit, to investigate the diversity of organisms, specifically reptiles and amphibians. The Herptology Team are scientists that study these two groups of organisms, and Dr Ryan Ellis identified our catch as we spent our third incredible day in the field. We identified the following species: Banjo Frog (Limnodynastes dorsalis), Moaning frog (Heleioporus eyrie), Quacking Frog (Crinia georgiana), Shrubland snake eyed skink (Morethia obscura), Peron’s earless skink (Tarsipes rostratus) and adult Honey possum (Tarsipes rostratus) – possums are not reptiles or amphibians, obviously, but share the same habitat and are super cute!!

Now, if one visit to the field isn’t enough for a Sunday, there was plenty more activity for the Bush Blitzers! We drove into Esperance to help with the Bush Blitz Community Day – where the scientists and teachers had the opportunity to share with the locals, the valuable work being done by this Program to promote Biodiversity and Conservation. It was busy!!

After lunch, we went with the Botany Team and met the curators of the Esperance Regional Herbarium, to view the pressed plant collections. The work being done to document the plant diversity and also abundance is significant and this collection dates back many years, which enables the scientists to collect molecular information about the plants and check for information, like indications of the date of first flowering which contributes to data collected about changes to the local climate and impact of climate change.

A Yarning Circle by the fire pit ended the activities of the day, listening to stories with Doc. The audience was captivated as we listened to Doc, and in the background, the crackling of the fire.