All of our small local native mammals are nocturnal, except for one – the yellow-footed antechinus, a rather rat-like marsupial that is active during the day.
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Locally, this little animal is rather restricted in distribution, found north of the Great Dividing Range.
This year, I have had several sightings of the yellow-footed antechinus near Clunes. One scuttled quickly across the road in front of us and soon disappeared. My initial thought was that it was a bird such as a babbler crossing from one side of the road to the other.
A couple of kilometres away, on a private timbered block, the yellow-footed antechinus is seen on most visits.
My most recent sighting was last weekend, when one was spotted scampering along a log, then up to and inside a stump. It then emerged from the stump, ran again along the log, jumped to the ground and scampered back along the log to the stump again.
It did this four or five times while I was watching birds nearby. Curiosity aroused, I observed the little animal more closely and found it was collecting gum leaves – mostly just one at a time – and taking them back to its nesting hole in the stump. All this activity occurred in morning sunlight.
Although basically greyish-brown, the yellow-footed antechinus has a definite yellowish tone underneath.
The recent animal would have been a mated (pregnant) female. At this time of the year, all males are dead, having died soon after mating, a month or two ago. An adult yellow-footed antechinus eats invertebrates, eggs, nectar and small vertebrates such as lizards and mice.
WOODSWALLOWS
White-browed woodswallows and masked woodswallows visit us for a short while with the season’s warm north winds.
Most of the time they are seen flying north against the wind, but sometimes they alight and stay for a while, especially north of the Divide.
A recent flock of more than 200 of these active restless birds was seen near Clunes. At times there were many of them feeding among the flowers of yellow gums, chortling and chirping as they did so.
Included in their vocalisations were at least two imitations of birds they had heard some time ago at faraway places. One of these was the striped honeyeater and the other was the cockatiel. The hearing of these calls near Clunes certainly had me on alert until I realised what was happening.
Occasionally, the birds rose together with much chirping, flying around high in the sky before gradually settling into their former routine again.