A few nights after agreeing to go on an Earthwatch Discovery Weekend I woke with a frightening thought: Leeches. Why had I not realized that two nights searching for frogs in creeks and small ponds would involve these revolting creatures? Get over it I say to myself. How bad can it be? It doesn’t faze the kids one bit.
I’m here this weekend with my son Fin, daughter Holly and her friend Ellen. We’re here to learn something about frogs, the environmental impact on them and other local indigenous species, and have fun camping. Altogether there are six kids in the group, five grown up volunteers joining the Earthwatch team of four.
The drive into the Wategon Forest is green and picturesque. Our campsite is in a deep gully surrounded by tall gums. It’s beautiful. I’m on the campsite all of two minutes before I find a leech on my skirt. My friendly guide peels it off as I squeal like a schoolgirl.
As we wait for dinner we’re briefed on the weekend activities and possible dangers. Snakes (hadn’t thought of those). But we’re assured no one in the history of Earthwatch weekends has been bitten. And this Earthwatch camp’s policy on snakes is No Touching (like I was tempted). We’re hoping to see a fair variety of frogs and are even promised the possibility of platypuses. Bring it on!
As we’re briefed the kids disappear with Stephen in search of geckos. Stephen is the son of Dr Michael Mahony, the scientist who’s leading this research trip. A junior herpetologist, he has joined his father on research trips since he was four years old. He has an impressive knowledge of reptiles and amphibians and knows a wide range of scientific names. The younger boys are naturally incredibly impressed and follow him around like the Pied Piper. They arrive back from their search elated with their (Stephen’s) find – two geckos (phyllurus platuras).
Bolognese and Frogs
After a dinner of spaghetti Bolognese we don head-torches and make our way to the closest creek – kids ahead of us (leech bait). Fin is the first to find a frog – a bright yellow one (Wilcox’s frog). It takes him a while to fine tune his frog-catching skills but eventually the frog’s bagged ready for analysis.
We head next for a pond up the road, spotlighting wildlife on the way – don’t the kids love this! Microbats swoop in and out of the light of the torch as we look out for wallabies, dragons and snakes.
Fin catches his first frog
I’m amazed at the number of frogs we all catch in this small pond on the side of the road. Upes, brown striped marsh frogs and a rocket frog I’m told. Fin also finds an entire wallaby skeleton which he’s insisting on bringing home with us to piece together. Great.
As we head back for the campsite after a successful night’s frogging, our hopes of toasting marshmallows around the campfire are dashed when the heavens open. Well it wouldn’t be camping without at least one night’s rain.
Kids search for blood sucking leeches
In the morning the kids take themselves on a bushwalk with Stephen and return with ankles covered in leeches. They’re thrilled of course with the amount of wildlife they’ve seen and the grown ups have missed out on.
Today’s activities include tadpoling. It’s a steamy hot day so the kids waste no time getting wet. They wade in thigh deep with nets, returning triumphantly every few seconds with their catches. We’re catching giant burrowing frog tadpoles today so the scientists with us can keep an eye on their population and swab them to test for disease.
Our second evening is spent a few kilometers away from our campsite at a beautiful spot called Boarding House Dam. It’s an old logging site famous for a feature called the Moss Wall. We set up in the barbeque area in a small clearing at the foot of this deep gully and go for a walk through the moss-floored forest while waiting for nightfall and dinner.
A forest full of little fairies
It’s a fairytale forest – I half expect to see fairies and elves jump out from behind toadstools. Tonight we’re in search of the giant bard frog, and endangered species. They’re enormous – with females twice the size of males. The kids run up and down the banks catching them, bringing them back to Michael to be micro-chipped, scanned, measured and weighed before being released.
On the way back to camp the kids get another spotlighting treat – counting the wildlife all the way back: swamp wallabies (three), lyrebirds (two), bush turkeys (one), tawny frogmouth (one), microbats (four) and one snake.
Our last day is spent tadpoling at another pond nearby where we find yet another species of frog and Stephen finds a small dragon. Sadly then its time to pack up camp and head home. I can honestly say the kids appear more excited about this weekend away than a recent trip to the Gold Coast theme parks. And they’ve learnt a lot from the experience.
