We have got back last week from a wonderful couple of weeks camping in
Tassie. The mammal watching was fantastic.

Bearing in mind Lawrie's request for some activity on the list, I thought
readers may be interested in a trip report.

By the way, I fully support the continued existence of the list and hope it
is not too much burden on Lawrie. I haven't been able to get to the survey
yet

In all we saw 14 species, 3 of which were new for us, so we were very
excited. The mammals were:

Rabbit
Rufous-bellied Pademelon
Common Ringtail Possum
Common Brushtail Possum (both Black and grey forms)
Common Dolphin (from the Melbourne - Devonport ferry)
Seal / Sea Lion Sp (from the Melbourne - Devonport ferry)
Bennett's Wallaby
Pygmy Possum sp
Eastern Barred Bandicoot #
Echidna
Water Rat
Devil #
Eastern Quoll #
Wombat

Tassie is a really good place to visit, as everybody keeps saying. Even a
couple of days around Hobart a few years ago was wonderful for birds and
mammals. So this time we had 3 weeks and we set our hopes on
Barred-bandicoots, quolls and devils. Even with this amount of time we
didn't get around to seeing anything on the eastern half of the island.
There will be lots to see when we get down there again.

Perhaps the overall highlight was a sight-seeing trip to Melaleuca and
Bathurst Harbour in the far south west. The mammal feature here was seeing
a pygmy possum in a 'roost/drey' (if that is the right term). Unfortunately
we couldn't see it well enough to know whether it was an Eastern or Little
Pygmy Possum - oh well. Very exciting nevertheless.

Perhaps the other general comment is that the pademelons and brushtails are
everywhere. I think you could expect to see them everyday.

Our first night was at Lake Barrington near Devonport where we saw 5 things
- we were off to a good start. Narawantapu NP was extremely dry and no good
for mammals on this trip but is apparently good at other times.
Unfortunately our plans to visit the waterworks in Hobart, where we were
hoping for many goodies, didn't happen. However Mt Field showed us our
first barred-bandicoots and an Echidna. Hours of spotlighting didn't have a
hint of quolls, but we kept trying at later camps including Lake Pedder,
Ocean Beach at Strahan (where the masked owl wouldn't reveal itself either)
and the South Arthur Forest Drive. We found a water rat in the reserve in
Burnie at lunchtime, but unsurprisingly the platypus must have been asleep.

Cradle Mountain - Dove Lake is the place to see things. It was our last 3
nights and we had put quite a big effort in after a dozen nights
spotlighting, but only seen one new thing. Even here, where some people
tell you quolls and devils are everywhere, there was nothing anywhere around
campground the first night. So the 2nd night (6 degrees and a breeze) we
drove very slowly from the camp to Dove Lake and very luckily a Devil ran
across the road in front of us. We were extremely excited - we had found
one in the wild. By the time we got to Ronny's Ck car park, wombats were
the thing to watch. After doing this for awhile, we were just leaving when
an eastern quoll scampered past us from behind and then up the boardwalk in
front of us. Very good views of a black one. What a good night out, even
if it was freezing cold.

For the final night we thought we would go somewhere else and hopefully find
a spot-tailed quoll, but a ranger convinced us that we were already in the
best spot to see mammals. He told us where to go looking for sugar gliders,
and both species of pygmy possums around Waldheim (& a small possibility of
the other quoll). We were feeling lucky so set off again in the near zero
temperatures. No luck on any of the targets, but did see another 3 eastern
quolls (2 black and a brown). One of which was quite possibly the same as
the previous night as it was in the same spot. The interesting thing about
this was it came out of the bush around dark to cross the river, but when 3
Native Hens noticed it they harassed it until it retreated back into the
forest.

All in all a wonderful trip - great mammals, great birds (3 new species and
numerous new races), 2 tiger snakes, amazing scenery and too much chocolate,
cheese and raspberries. We are already dreaming of the next time we can go,
where the eastern half will offer many new things too.

John Goldie and Kathy Walter
Canberra