Northern Tablelands Local Land Services (LLS) will hold an evening Spotlight Adventure Walk in Armidale on Tuesday, April 16. The same event due to be held in Inverell on Monday, April 15 was fully booked within a couple of hours.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
It is an opportunity for landholders and the broader Armidale community to meet some of the shyer locals with local ecologist and wildlife expert Wendy Hawes.
It might be a bit chilly, but hopefully we'll see some critters that Wendy can identify for people.
- Andrew Walsh
Senior land services officer Andrew Walsh said the idea was to get people out into the bush to see what was in their backyard in terms of native animals.
"Sometimes the best time to see those creatures is at night, as their shiny eyes reflect in the spotlight, and we can go through and try to identify what's out there," he said.
"It's good fun and a family event. It might be a bit chilly, but hopefully we'll see some critters that Wendy can identify for people. There could be anything from possums to squirrel gliders, maybe the odd fox if we're unlucky.
"We may see a quoll if we're very, very, very, very lucky, but we'll see lots of spiders and down by the creeks and rivers we may see some frogs, and little creatures that make those wet areas home."
Andrew said all the night's entertainment was free of charge and began with a barbecue.
"We kick off at about 5pm for a bit of dinner, and after it gets a bit dark we will head off into the bush," he said.
ALSO READ:
"The kids love this, they get to walk through the bush and try to spot things and have a lot of fun. We did a some of these nights a few years ago and decided to bring them back and see what sort of engagement we'd get."
Andrew said spotlight nights were good because parents could go along with their kids and it was a good outing for school holidays.
The Spotlight Adventure Walk highlights the significance of well managed and protected areas of native vegetation to serve as a refuge for rare and valuable native fauna, which provide all sorts of benefits to farmers in the form of ecosystem services.
Funding is currently available to help landholders protect existing patches of bush and to plant more trees on farms which provide habitat for our native fauna. The focus of this funding is along rivers and creeks.
For more information about funding and the Spotlight Adventure Walk, please contact Andrew Walsh on 0427 433 317.
