I tripped over something sinister in the bush one day and.......

As an environmental consultant I am contracted to do many and varied a job in many and varied a location. On any given week I could be in the middle of the Gulf country in Queensland, at the top of Western Australia in the far north Kimberley, down in the deep south or just fluffing around the Perth metro area. 

These days, more often than not I work alone. I love it: often alone but never lonely. However, sometimes the solitude can catch up to you and it overwhelms my effervescent mind. When this happens it can get a little creepy. Oddly though, I find it far less creepy out in the middle of nowhere than in the middle of suburbia and there is a damn good reason for that.

Take Herdsman Lake for instance! It is a massive 400 ha swamp not more than spitting distance from the Perth CBD. It is surrounded by the industrial behemoth that is Osborne Park and an enormous ensemble of high-density and low-socioeconomic apartment style housing estates. Suffice is to say that crime is not unheard of and wildlife is not the only thing you would expect to find in this peri-urban swampland.

A beautiful urban wetland it is; among other things.

 

I have walked around that lake 100 times looking for tiger snakes and every single time I expect to trip over a dead body lying cold, pale and still among the typha reeds and couch grass. On more than one occasion I have happened across small collections of ladies underwear: were they stolen from the clothes line of a nearby house by some pervert or were they all that was left of a far more sinister undertaking??

Hopefully, by now you can appreciate how I felt the other day when I came across a near-disintegrating child's Ugg boot not meters from a collection of bones lying in a depression surrounded by impenetrable swampland vegetation. 

At first I did not think much of it and proceeded to pick through the bones in an attempt to determine the species that once they were. As an ecophysiologist my functional morphology leaves a little to be desired but, despite being bleached by the sun and desiccated to within an inch of their existence, they were far to dense too be the frame work of an animal capable of flight. The disproportionately large scapular was curious, but the spinose process was really throwing me. It was the part of the pelvic girdle (not shown) that made my heart sink.

In my mind I joined the dots: the booty, the depression, the setting. Immediately I thought to call the police, but I hesitated: how embarrassing would that be? Dr Mitch Ladyman, 25 years a biologist and he can't distinguish a human bone from that of another lower vertebrate!!!! Shame on him.

Difficult to see in the photo, save for the dense collection of detritus, but that is a clearly discernable depression and the log over-top has not moved for years, if not decades. Clearly, something had been buried here causing the soil to subside as it decomposed.

To save face, I had to investigate further. So carefully I scratched around in the depression, pushing the desiccated detritus to one side. I hit something hard; crisp even. It was immovable. A little more fossicking revealed what was clearly a ball joint apex of something like a thigh bone. Not big, but big enough. That was that!!!! I called the police........

The Hungry Snake

Trip 2: Henley Brook to Roe8

Purpose: Fauna clearing and translocation

Total Distance Travelled: 1680 km (so far!?!)
Distance Travelled Year to Date: 3080 km

What is the definition of a business executive? Broadly it refers to a person, usually in private enterprise, that is a principal decision maker determining the path of projects and the path of their own organization.

The stereotypical business exec is perceived to be a corporate bully boy or girl in a 'suit' that sips a latte, barks into his/her smart phone, wears shiny shoes (with or without heels) and rushes from one place to the next trying to look more important than all of the other suits on the terrace.

Environmental practitioners don't just challenge this sterotype; we belt it clean out of the park. Just the other day, whilst resolving pressing issues on a major urban development project I was not wearing a suit; I seldom do. Rather, I was wearing steel capped boots, King Gees, a fluoro orange shirt, service station sunnies and a plastic bucket on my head.

Where the terrace exec dodges traffic as he/she darts from hither to yonder, I was dodging spider webs, massive plumes of filthy black dust, falling trees and a traxcavator (dozer) that I swear was being driven by The Stig. Nevertheless, with phone in hand, I was still able to plot a course of events and that would contribute significantly to keeping the project on track.

But in moment of complete serendipity I am reminded that the real biology that feeds me and keeps me breathing is never very far away.

Dugites Pseudonaja affinis are highly mobile snakes that move swiftly and forage widely. Though they need to bask, which involves lying around in the sun, they are not often encountered even when one is actively searching. If you are lucky, you may see one dart across a track in front of you whilst you are driving. More often than not, the most you will see of this species is a track or a sloughed skin.

When a snake sheds or sloughs the spectacle covering the eye also sloughs off; eerie but cool.

So you can only imagine how chuffed I was when, whilst solving the big issues on my iPhone out bush, this adorable little example literally cruised right up to my steel caps and fossicked around for a meal completely unperturbed by my presence.

The Hungry Snake - click here to go to youtube

Follow me and I will take you nowhere; far more exciting than somewhere

I don't hope that 2017 is going to be an epic year; hope, more often than not, leads to unnecessary disappointment. I don't expect 2017 to be an epic year; fundamentally, I am a pessimist. I don't wish for 2017 to be an epic year; wishes belong in the land of fairies and unicorns. I just know 2017 is going to be an epic year and, if it isn't, I shall make it so!

New Uni life, world-wild destinations, working with Kimberley traditional owners, new Masters students to supervise, big small screen events (the filming of a natural history documentary on my beloved tiger snakes) and the perpetual pursuit of knowledge by investigation.

I will be spending quite a lot of time by myself but that is OK as I seem to enjoy the accompaniment of nothing but nature. So although I am often alone, I am never lonely.

Sometimes You Have to Botanize to Realize the Bigger Prize

Trip 1: Perth-Wiluna-Perth

Purpose: Priority Flora Survey

Total Distance Travelled: 1400 km 
Distance Travelled Year to Date: 1400km

Not a particularly mind-blowing way to start the survey year; a grid search of a post-mine exploration apocalypse looking for a hairy little shrub (the Priority 1 species Eremophila congesta) that looks not dissimilar to every other hairy looking shrubs. What is worse is the fact that it is 43+⁰C in Wiluna at the moment. I shan’t complain, however, as any survey anywhere at any time could result in an opportunistic encounter with some epic beast.

It's that little dot in the middle of W.A.

To be honest, I actually prefer doing targeted surveys for only one (or two or three) particular species rather than comprehensive baseline surveys for all species, even if the species I am chasing is a plant. This may be a little hard to comprehend: why would I want to wander around looking for one thing when I could be racing around catching and recording everything? 

It is quite simple; during a baseline biological survey I am flat out from pre-dawn ‘til dark (and sometimes beyond). There is everything to do and no time to do anything. I really do feel like a 24/7 biologist; mix bait, clear traps, set traps, download data from cameras and bat acoustic monitors, upload data to devices, identify animals, release animals once they have been identified and maintain animals in captivity that have not yet been identified. It is hectic, to say the least.

When doing a targeted survey you have your proverbial blinkers on; your eyes and a small part of brain are focused specifically on a single search image. You look and you walk and you walk and you look. Meanwhile, your heart and the rest of your head floats freely, taking in every single detail captured by your peripheral vision. And that is when you see the good stuff. You stop and observe and enjoy; interact even. I usually can’t help myself. 

Sometimes you just have to botanize to realize the bigger prize sits just beyond the corners of your eyes.

This is how a zoologist sorts botanical samples. Not neatly and not using the appropriate techniques or equipment.