Wickham River Reconnaissance Trip 11 th and 12 th Nov 2006

Crew; Chad Sloan and Dave Woods

Trip report by Dave Woods

This weekend’s objective was to determine whether or not toads had been able to establish themselves in the Wickham River and if so how far upstream (west) had they travelled. As only a handful of toads have been reported at V.R.D homestead, which is on the banks of the Wickham, so we were to base our search from a few kilometres upstream from the homestead to Yarralin community. It is roughly 10-12 kilometres upstream from V.R.D. homestead. One solitary toad has been found here earlier in the year.

Chad and I based ourselves at the farmyard crossing and began organising the gear for the night’s mission. Just before sunset we set off on the Quads following the Wickham upstream. Our first destination was a permanent pool just downstream from Yarralin Community on the Wickham. By the time we arrived it was dark so we armed ourselves with our spotlights and began searching for any signs of toads around this large pool. After a thorough search lasting over two hours, the two of us hadn’t seen any evidence of toads along this section of the River. Nonetheless, It was the right habitat for toads and was a good sign not to see any, this far up the Wickham.

We decided to go back downstream to where our camp was and conduct a search of this section of river, as it was a little closer to the V.R.D. homestead. We knew of the reports from the station folk that toads were sighted in this area, late in the wet. So we were looking to see if the toads had colonised on the permanent pools of the Wickham. Chad and I spent over two hours searching high and low this section of river but came up empty handed again. This was also somewhat of a relief.

We then decided to check Draft Horse Turkeys Nest, which sits on the banks of the Wickham River but another five plus kilometres further downstream. Leaving only another seven or eight kilometres until the Wickham meets the Victoria River. This is now also downstream of the Homestead and as we know how much toads love Turkeys Nests, this needed to be checked. Being so close to the river I held grave fears but was very pleased when we found it free of toads.

From Draft Horse we headed due south on the Quad Bikes to a crossing on the Victoria River. The crossing is called Bismark Crossing. It is about twelve kilometres upstream from Dashwood Crossing. Once at the crossing, Chad went downstream with a spotlight and I went the other direction. After searching for over an hour we met back at the bikes and neither of us had seen any toads at all. It was good to see no toads at this crossing on the Vic, as it proves from Dashwood upstream, the population of toads diminishes to non-existent.

After making our way back to camp we had one last look in the area for toads with nothing to report. It was then time for some shuteye as the new day was not far away. At sunrise we packed up before it got to hot and made a move back home. Big thanks to Chad for his big effort on this weekend’s toad bust. It was also great to see this area unaffected at present, even if it may be short-lived as the wet season is just around the corner. Special thanks to Russell and Julie (Station managers) for the opportunity to access the property and to conduct our work.