Full Moon

[thehairyone]

Hi All , At the times of a full moon , some people and animals act a little strange , I am wondering
if anyone has had raised interaction levels or any other strange occurrences happen on a full moon .
Our next one is Monday night and I am going bush for the night to have a look and hopefully have something to report
Cheers Greg

[Wolf]

Dunno about strange occurrences but I love being out in the bush during a full moon.
I love being in the bush any night but the added light makes it easier to get around.

[Slats]

Hi Greg
I've read that the hairy ones can get more vocal on clear full moon nights, howls and stuff. However it would make you more visible to any fauna aswell.
Good Luck!

[paulmcleod67]

Definitely. The sticky weather combined with a bright full moon plays a part in increased activity OMHO. This makes logical sense even factoring out a lunar cycle related behavior pattern. Better viewing conditions would serve an ambush predator well, not to mention whatever affect the full moon has on generic animal prey species.

Cheers

[paulmcleod67]

Dunno about strange occurrences but I love being out in the bush during a full moon.
I love being in the bush any night but the added light makes it easier to get around.

I agree mate awesome time for a woody stroll (or a Woody and a stroll). Except for here...the spider population has exploded. Massive, occupied trail blockers in friggin layers. I'm going to have to grow nine legs just to get away from the eight legs army. I'm not arachnophobia at all but what a massive pain in the trunk and just an extra headache when you are trying to be stealthy and direct whilst lining up a view finder. I got tagged by two big Goldens the other night. For a soft c... spider bite, I got pretty bad heart palpitations from the venom.

[paulmcleod67]

I forgot to mention that a good thing may have come out of the spider plague. A liitle theory about indications of yowie activity in high spider areas. I've been monitoring individual large spiders that have managed to occupy center of web, night and day for weeks, across fairly open trail areas without being picked off by birds or reptiles? Why? No birds around, no reptiles around ,in fact no marsupials of any type, not even a rabbit or a wild moggy. Of course my answer is that resident yowies have eaten the lot and scare the birds from the area because of the alarm they raise around the big fellas. No predation of spiders...spiders get big and fat and of plenty. If true it makes picking areas to monitor for yowie activity a bit easier at least. Pine Mountain...great yowie activity...spiders everywhere and no other generic species activity at five o'clock evert time Im there a massive cockatoo mob fly towards the area, then freak out and alter the course around the area I did see one gnarly cane toad, only one, sighted in almost two months though. Chuwar...exactly the same, birds roost out of the immediate area (within ear shot but away still. In the cooler months none of this happens. Got me thinking....Another potential site indicator perhaps?

[Shazzoir]

I tend to agree with your reasoning about why there are so many spiders about, Paul. Birds are quite adept at picking off any spider in a clearing or pathway, but if it's really thick and hard going in there, it might keep the larger birds out, just by level of difficulty in manoeuvering between trees/shrubs. Lizards can't get up there to nab the spiders, so that might be one explanation. The main indicator though, would be if you just don't see or hear birds in that area at all, and you're there at all hours, so if you don't hear or see any at dawn, in particular, that is odd.

Shazz

[paulmcleod67]

I tend to agree with your reasoning about why there are so many spiders about, Paul. Birds are quite adept at picking off any spider in a clearing or pathway, but if it's really thick and hard going in there, it might keep the larger birds out, just by level of difficulty in manoeuvering between trees/shrubs. Lizards can't get up there to nab the spiders, so that might be one explanation. The main indicator though, would be if you just don't see or hear birds in that area at all, and you're there at all hours, so if you don't hear or see any at dawn, in particular, that is odd.

Shazz

Hello again matey. There are massive web structures abundantly stretched across wide no canopy trails and...lots....and lots of them, all with almost over developed fat spiders. Ill take a few still frames from footage I've taken during the daytime, no difference in numbers other than increasing. They are simply not being culled. I've never seen the like. The bird life is skirting the area but not entering. They even seem to fly around these given areas...could be a magnetic anomaly interfering with there internal flight "GPS" I suppose but that doesn't explain the complete lack of any mammals or any other non bug species....like nothing in this part of SE qld? That's absurd in summer. The tell will be as winter approaches and yowie activity drops off. If everything reverts to its natural order that's a good indication of yowie causation.

[jai]

G'day all, this is my first post so be gentle.....lol!

Just a quick question or two, if there are no prey animals in the area for a large ambush predator (as some people believe the yowie is) to target, what are they eating? Do they leave the area at night to hunt and then return before sun up? It's an interesting theory, but I'm not sure that the lack of mammal and bird life would be due to the fact that a larger predator is in the area. For all the mammals to vacate a certain area (how big of an area are we talking?) would indicate that the predator is either a clumsy, loud and possibly ineffective hunter that alerts a wide range of animals to its presence when hunting....or it is intentionally chasing off all other animal life. Why would it do that? Even if it were a young yowie family using the area as a nursery, it would be a big ask and a fulltime job to keep an area in SE Qld mammal and bird free. SE Qld contains 36 percent of Queensland’s monotreme and marsupial fauna.

Spiders are an excellent tool to use when hunting. Especially when they build on game trails because you can tell if something has been through and broken the webs. Depending on the flexibility of the structure they have attached their webs to. If they build between a large tree and a small sapling for example, you can get an idea of the height of the animal that passed through (taking into account the flexibility of the sapling and therefore the extra lift in the entire web when lower webs are broken) Also, look for roo tracks and consider if the web was broken mid hop. The Golden Orb and Golden Weaver spiders are reasonably big and build very strong webs. Whilst hunting and mustering we often found small birds like the grass sparrow and finch, as well as large grass hoppers, dragon flies etc dead in their webs.

[yowiedan]

While being out Yowie Researching during a full moon there hasn't been too much Yowie activity at all, so I tend to go out when the moon isn't at it's brightest because the Yowies like to be hidden in the darkness when we are around. The brightness of the full moon takes away their coverage so for me personally the darker it is the better from experience.

[TrevorPeters]

While being out Yowie Researching during a full moon there hasn't been too much Yowie activity at all, so I tend to go out when the moon isn't at it's brightest because the Yowies like to be hidden in the darkness when we are around. The brightness of the full moon takes away their coverage so for me personally the darker it is the better from experience.

From my research and trips into the bush (as few as they have been) I would agree completely. It was quiet as the grave on full moon nights. Not much going on when there are big storms around either, except you get really wet and disappointed. Quiet dark nights though and they seem more comfortable being out and about.

[thehairyone]

Gday Dan & Trevor , well I can report that on the night I stayed out , with the full moon , I definitely had a lot less activity that I would normally expect .
Only had one wood knock and reply in the distance , I normally have more .Im going out again during the March long weekend , hopefully for a few days
Cheers Greg