A SCIENTIST has captured invaluable images of everything from sex-crazed marsupials to a photo-bombing bird near Castlemaine.
The pictures are part of years-long La Trobe University research that could help save threatened wildlife.
Jess Lawton's 51 camera traps have captured moments in the bush that would have otherwise gone unseen.
That includes a brown tree keeper that took 900 selfies in the space of a few days.
"It wasn't interested in the bait (that was set near the cameras to attract wildlife) but I think it really, really liked its reflection in the camera lens," Ms Lawton said.
The researcher was not trying to observe birds during the study.
She was instead trying to track an elusive tree-dweller threatened as much by its own sex life as habitat loss and predators.
Male phasocales only live for a year. They die of exhaustion after the frenzied search for mates.
Females only live a few years longer, making their population extra unstable.
Ms Lawton is about to submit her findings in a La Trobe University thesis that charts how different landscapes affect brush-tailed phascogales.
"Habitats are changing all over the world, meaning there's less for animals. The Mount Alexander Shire has big areas of intact reserves, smaller patches of forests and scattered trees," she said.
Ms Lawton's findings still needs to be peer-reviewed, so she cannot yet go public with them.
However, she can share some of the remarkable moments her cameras captured.
Some are of animals so rare most people would not know they exist, let alone realise are living quietly in central Victoria's forests.
They are often incredibly hard to spot using other wildlife survey methods like "spotlighting", where scientists literally shine lights on animals.
Sixteen cameras spied yellow-footed antechinuses. The endangered shrew-like marsupials lose their entire male-population every year because of frenzied mating, just like phascogales.
Forty-two cameras picked up the phascogales that Ms Lawton was searching for.
"Long-term monitoring has shown that this species is in decline across Victoria, and it's extinct in some parts of the state. So these findings indicate that the Mount Alexander area may be an important stronghold for this species," Ms Lawton said.
Ms Lawton was disheartened cameras picked up foxes at 41 sites.
"They are known predators of phascogales," she said.
"It was also sad to detect cats at four sites - most of those detections were at night when phascogales were also active."
Cameras captures images of dogs at 16 sites but Ms Lawton said most were clearly pets or farm animals wandering in the day light.
"Hopefully, their owners were responsible and kept their pets confined at night to keep both the dogs and phascogales safe," she said.
Ms Lawton does not roam the forests just to complete her La Trobe thesis.
She is also working for Connecting Country, a not-for-profit group that restores landscapes, educates people about conservation and monitoring wildlife.
The group is also monitoring phascogales, and whether those animals are using 450 nest boxes installed over the years.
"A lot of the birds in our region are part of the Victorian temporate woodland bird community, and that's one that is listed as threatened," Ms Lawton said.
The group is also monitoring phascogales, and whether they are using 450 nest boxes installed over the years.
That research is separate to Ms Lawton's La Trobe thesis.
The research has found nest boxes are becoming more common on the slopes of hills, rather than in gullies.
"We suspect it's because the phasocales on those slopes have access to more stringybark and box-type trees," Ms Lawton said.
"Gullies in the area tend to have a lot more red and yellowgums that might be a little harder for animals to climb. Or they might not have as much food."
Connecting Country will next survey nestbox sites in Autumn 2021 and people will be invited to volunteer for the count, if COVID-19 restrictions allow it.
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