As Ben Croak walks through Kama Nature Reserve pointing a large antenna in different directions, one can't help but be reminded of decades past, when a similar looking device sat on top of your TV.
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Whenever the signal got a bit fuzzy, you'd adjust it slightly in search of a better picture quality.
But here in 2019, Dr Croak, an ACT Parks and Conservation Service research ecologist, is looking for something far more difficult to find.
He's listening to the faint sound of beeps from a device connected to the antenna. The beeps lead Dr Croak to the striped legless lizards he attached tiny radio transmitters to during the process of moving them from a site planned for development to their new home in Kama Nature Reserve, near Hawker.
When the antenna is pointing in the right direction, the beeps grow louder, but the process requires a careful ear and a lot of trial and error.
The lizards, which are classified as vulnerable in the ACT, are usually less than 300 millimetres long and like to spend their time in medium-height, native tussock grasses, making them hard to spot.
Even as you get closer and the radio tracker pinpoints the exact tuft of grass the animal is in, there's no guarantee you'll be able to see it.
When the Sunday Canberra Times visits Kama Nature Reserve with Dr Croak, he's looking for two lizards fitted with transmitters, which weigh just 0.27 grams.
He eventually finds both, though the smaller of the pair takes a while to locate.
Dr Croak's goal is to track five lizards at the source site and five in Kama Nature Reserve as the translocation project progresses.
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The transmitters only work for 12 days, so he'll remove them from lizards 11 days after they've been fitted. If he's unable to find the lizards on that day, they'll eventually shed the transmitters anyway.
"We're looking at differences in behaviour and habitat use at the source site versus the translocation site," he said.
"The vegetation structure's a bit different here [in Kama Nature Reserve] to where they came from.
"That area is a bit more weedy than this is, so this is actually quite nice habitat for them.
"The fact there were no striped legless lizards here is probably due to farming and grazing in the past.
"Now that it's an offset area and it's being returned to its natural sort of state, this should be a good area for them to thrive."
Dr Croak said while the project was in its early stages, the radio transmitters had already provided him with some unexpected insights.
"We expected [the lizards] to move a lot further at this translocation site," he said.
"We expected them to be more upset that they'd been moved out of where they know. Because they're in a different area, we expected them to roam far and wide, really."
Dr Croak said they had instead stuck to a home range about 10 square metres in size.
Striped legless lizards were once likely widespread throughout south-eastern Australia, wherever native grassland was present.
But about 99.5 per cent of natural temperate grassland in Australia has been destroyed or drastically altered since European settlement, leading to a decline in the species.
Canberra's remaining populations are found in the Gungahlin and Belconnen areas, the Majura Valley around Canberra Airport, in central Canberra on land adjacent to Yarramundi Grasslands, and in the Jerrabomberra Valley.
The lizards can live for up to 20 years.
ACT Parks and Conservation Service ecologist Dr Brett Howland said striped legless lizards had been translocated to Kama Nature Reserve in 2016, but until recently there had been little indication of how those animals had fared in their new home because they were so difficult to track.
Ecologists found a pregnant female last year, and have in recent days tracked down another two of the lizards.
Dr Howland said the fact these lizards were breeding was an encouraging sign and an indication the new translocation project had a good chance of success.