Night Safari:

March 26th:

Night research for Geckos and other nocturnal reptiles is now a key part of my role and fortunately on the 26th I was able to night survey a  huge mainland site with 8 (140m long) transects.

The night started off well, as we saw 3 Gaur (Remember them from "Gaur, Grom and Gibbons"???) from the boat on the way to the research site as well as a female Sambar and Fawn (Similar to Red Deer but larger). Not long after reaching the island we saw the eye shine of a HUGE mammal not 15 ft away. It turned out to be a huge Sambar buck with 2 ft antlers and stood eye to eye with me (6ft tall). It stood watching us for a short while before disappearing off into the night. On the 2nd transect we found one of our small mammal cages left behind from the previous day, with a tree shrew still inside!! This tree shrew was weighted, measured, tagged and blood sampled before being released (The tree shrew screaming the entire time!).

After crossing a stream full to the rafters with breeding frogs, we reached the 6th transect. About 10m in we all saw the eye shine of a very small mammal. Which Grom (our guide) explained was a (Meow Lik) or "Small Cat". We had seen a Leopard Cat one of the smallest cat species in South East Asia. Yes its no Tiger or actual Leopard but I was (and still am) ecstatic about this discovery. The night safari was all finished off by a 50m sprint after disturbing a wasp nest on the home stretch to the boat.

One of the Geckos which are key species to my Night Surveys the Slender Toed Gecko. This one held by me and photographed by S. Coronado.