Animal species recorded on the property Trail Cameras.
One of my favourite things to do is to place Trail cameras around our property to try and record the large variety of species that I have never seen in real life, potentially due to their secretive nature. In this Journal I will analyse sightings from my old property and current.
Location - South-East Queensland, Australia
Firstly, the cameras used are Adventure Kings, roughly $40 AUD each, purchased of Ebay. They are really great little cameras that record 1080p in video and sharp photos. The max limit of video is 15 seconds however (before more movement is necessary). Looking into the future I would not have minded to get a camera with a fraction better resolution and even if possible 4k as wildlife are so unpredictable and would be incredible to record a rare occurrence in high quality.
Old Property Habitat - Quite an interesting habitat for the location. The property consisted of a large lake, small stream, with small ponds and large reeds which, with potential further investigation may have produced rails. The property also consisted of dense forest a great spot for many species to hide during the day. After birding the property for over 6 months I was fortunate to sight over 80 bird species and a large variety of mammals, reptiles etc.
Interesting sightings - Unfortunately one of the biggest surprises caught on the cameras was a feral species. There were approximately three foxes (one juvenile) living on the property. The burrow was estimated to be in the field opposite the property. These foxes did threaten the native wildlife and unfortunately an unknown bird species was killed.
The first two trail camera positions yielded little return, which made me hesitant over the viability of this upcoming 6 month project. I was fortunately wrong. After consideration of the boundaries, it was decided to put one over the creek on a girthy log. This was inspired by one of my favourite videos, of hundreds of species using one massive log to cross rapids in Canada. By doing this I was able to record a local Brush tail possum, Bandicoot and Rakali (Water rat an amazing native species that eats Cane Toads, a pest in Australia.) These species gave me real hope and was able to record bird species harder to spot in real-life, such as Green Catbird, Pacific Emerald-Dove and some other curious species including Eastern Yellow Robin and White-Browed Scrubwren. With this large array of birdlife around the creek, numerous snakes were found in the vicinity. The two species that were seen on the trail cameras was an Eastern Brown Snake (extremely potent and deadly snake) and a common tree snake (non venomous).
Current Property Habitat - Now having moved it was a welcome surprise to have a different habitat to set-up the cameras in. The habitat consists of an open eucalyptus forest with a gorgeous understory of boulders and small brush species. Currently, there has been little success with cameras with only 4-5 species recorded, thankfully after birding for 3 months our current patch list is 77 species. Firstly,
Swamp Wallaby - A first for me on the Sunshine Coast, quite a uncommon species to see in the open and was awesome to record.
Fox - Unfortunately another feral species, seems to be a juvenile and no adults or others have been recorded for months.
Feral Cat - Another super sad species to find in a native environment. It is VITAL that cats are locked up at night.
Mouse - Not an expert in regards to the species.
I hope if you did finish this journal report that you leave a constructive comment or anything else you may have a query on,
Thomas
