One of my local areas of bush is Kensington Bushland – a remnant area of Banksia woodland. I have blogged about it before when I put a camera trap out to watch a Rainbow bee-eater nest. I had shown an interest in doing some more trapping and the council & friends group had arranged for a terrestrial fauna survey to be completed.
A research associate from the WA Museum had laid out a series of trap lines – with pit traps (buckets dug into the ground) with a shade mesh fence and a few funnel traps for larger animals.
This trapping went for about 2 weeks – with the traps being checked each morning.
I went the first day and we setup the funnel traps, draped them with hessian to provide some cover and also removed the lids from the trapping run about a month before.
The previous trapping didn’t catch much as it was quite cold and rainy which prevents many of the reptiles moving about too much.
Our first catch was a Bobtail in one of the funnel traps – as it was still early and quite cold it was pretty sluggish.
We also caught a few of the introduced pest Portuguese millipedes and this cool looking centipede.
Centipede in a pit trap @ Kensington Bushland
That was all we caught on my second day helping.
The third day I came down I heard the day before they had caught a dugite in one of the funnel traps. On the second trap line in one of the pit traps, we caught a Buchanan’s Snake-eyed Skink – this is the common one you often find on the fence in your garden.
Buchanan’s snake-eyed skink @ Kensington Bushland
In the next trap line in a pit trap we caught a new species for me – Common dwarf skink (Menetia greyii).
Throughout the bushland there were lots of lovely wildflowers.
I really enjoyed the trapping and it should run again in December when it will be much warmer and catch more critters!
Wildlife Watching in Australia 
The common dwarf skink lives up to it’s name.
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Nice work, Ry! Let me know if you’re going out there again soon; I’d be very interested in having a look.
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I will send you the details direct Maurice.
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Nice work man! Something I’d love to do as well!
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