The first day of October saw PCL hosting the first annual platypus count at Broken River, Eungella. It was a misty morning driving up the mountain, but the cloud had lifted at Broken River by our meeting time of 7.30am. With our 11 wonderful participants who made the journey to assist us in gathering data on platypus numbers and their habitat, we split into 3 groups – a group headed off to the Wishing Pools, another to the Diggings and the third spread out along the walkways at the Broken River hub.

Although some of us were lucky enough to spot platypus, there were no sightings at the Diggings or the Wishing Pools. In all locations the habitat ratings were good, showing that there are many pools along Broken River which are perfect for platypus.

We also spotted many different bird species and a variety of bug life! The morning ended with a wonderful spread put on by Jo from the @eungellasawmill , thanks Jo for your efforts!

The platypus count was further supported by a radio interview for ABC and our Coordinator Nancy participating in a live forum for Australian Wildlife Week, hosted by the Australian Wildlife Society . If you missed the event but would love to be a part of our citizen science platypus count, we also have a project set up in iNaturalist for platypus sightings – log on to the site and look for ???????? ???????? ?????. You can add data (photos and comments) to this project at any time! All records will help us gain a fuller understanding of numbers and locations of our beautiful and iconic platypus, so please share this information with your friends and family and add your findings to our project!

Find our project here www.inaturalist.org/projects/eungella-platypus-count

Finally, a massive thank you to all of our participants who made the journey to collect data with us so early in the morning, we really couldn’t do it without all of your support!

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