The world has become a very grim place at the moment now that the Mango Menace has unleashed “Operation Epic Fury” (really who comes up with these ridiculous names?) which means we have to take out a mortgage to buy a tank of petrol if we can find a servo with any in stock. So we decided to launch “Operation Numbat” whose sole function was to produce joy.
The goal was to spend a couple of nights at Dryandra and find a numbat. Easier said than done as we have been looking for around thirty years and never seen one. A numbat for the uninformed is smallish, about 30-40 cm long, marsupial that eats termites. It was once quite common across southern Australia, but was driven to the point of extinction when somebody thought that introducing foxes to Australia would be a good idea. There now exist only a few small isolated populations in Australia and Dryandra is one of them. The Western Australian state government introduced Operation Western Shield (another silly name) to protect vulnerable native fauna from feral foxes and cats. In Dryandra this is done with a combination of 1080 baiting and trapping. It’s reckoned that the programme has reduced the fox population by 80% (Marlow et al., 2015).
We weren’t there just for the numbats, we there for Woylies, Echidnas, birds and everything and anything wildlife related.
Day 1
We arrived at Dryandra at at lunch time and once we’d eaten we set off to walk the Wandoo Walk (day walk) the start of which is located at the Old Mill Dam. The walk is 2.7 Km long and takes about 1 1/2 hours – more if you are looking for animals like we were. It is touted as being good for wildlife with a chance of seeing Numbats. Now the great thing about Numbats is that unlike other small marsupials they are diurnal, and to cap it off like sunning themselves in open areas which in theory should make them easier to see. I say in theory as we have been looking for over thirty years without any luck and I was hoping that this trip would be fruitful. It was a really enjoyable walk and we saw loads of birds – in fact I’d never seen so many Rufous Treecreepers in one day. But, when it came to Numbats we saw neither hide nor hair.
Just before sunset we decided to walk around the large open paddock adjacent to the Dryandra Lions Village where we were staying. Western Grey Kangaroos were grazing on the grass and then we saw something we’d never seen before. We’d spotted an Echidna wandering round looking for ants when it encountered another Echidna. Now Echidnas are incredibly solitary animals and are rarely seen in the company of others. The two animals sniffed each other carefully and then went on their separate ways continuing their search for ants. As I continued walking along the perimeter of the paddock I found another Echidna and it came quite close allowing me to get some nice close ups.
Day 2
The morning saw us out on the Kawana Walk which is a 3.3Km walk through the Brown Mallet plantation, through the kwongan heath and then back through the Mallet trees. The varied landscape gives great opportunity to spot different birds, Kangaroos, Echidnas and fingers crossed Numbats. Again, like yesterday’s walk, we saw loads of wildlife – birds, kangaroos, and skinks – but no Numbats. It was hard not to feel a little dispirited at this stage. You plan trips and hope to see certain animals, like we did in our recent trip to Broome, but when you don’t find them you can feel very deflated even though you saw other animals.
After grabbing a quick drink I set off to walk down to the Old Mill Dam and sit in the hide there. Apart from seeing a Southern Slider Skink and a dragonfly I saw nothing. Desperation was really starting to set in now, so at 4pm we decided to go on a very slow drive around the park in the hoping that we’d see something. Driving along a deeply corrugated gravel road at 20Kph is enough to shake your fillings out of your teeth. It was torturous. At this stage your mind starts to play tricks on you. You so want to see that animal and you are desperately willing it to happen and every time a branch moves or a bird flies just above the ground you think NUMBAT! Your head twitches backwards and forwards trying to get a better glimpse of what wasn’t there. Suddenly at a junction just standing there as cool as you like was a Numbat just 20 metres away from the car. Gently stopping the car and winding the front passenger window down I managed to rattle off a few frames before it started moving. As it walked further round I could no longer shoot through the open window and I was having to use the front passenger quarter light window. At the time I knew this would seriously degrade the image quality, but I continued anyway in the hope that I might be able to salvage the images in post later. Then within 5 or 10 seconds it was off into the bush and we lost sight of it. We were both exhilarated – we had huge grins on our faces. We’d seen a Numbat! We had really seen a Numbat. Operation Numbat had been a huge success.
It’s now a week since that sighting and the memory of it still brings a huge smile to my face and a feeling of excitement. One Numbat isn’t enough – I want to back and see and photograph more. Hopefully it won’t take another 30 years to do it.
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