The
children giggled happily as we flicked on our torches and crossed the
busy road. Despite the traffic noise we could still hear a chorus of
frogs coming from along the creek. ‘Crick...crick...crick...crick’.
Last time I visited the
creek (in 2011), massive summer floods had torn apart the vegetation and
left a trail of destruction after the water receded. There were a few
birds to be seen, but being the wrong time of year for frogs to be
actively breeding, my explorations had focused mainly on searching for
birds and reptiles.
This week, however, I
arrived in this fabulous state just in time for some great amphibian
action! There’s been some good winter rainfall and Campbell’s Creek in
Castlemaine was alive at dusk with some very loud frog calls.
Consequently Gill, her brother, sister-in-law, mother and I took her
niece (4) and nephew (6) on a spotlighting adventure to see what types
of frogs we could find.
It
was great fun creeping along the wet, grassy creek-banks listening to
the cricks, croaks and ribbits coming from the water, and scanning our
torches among the reeds. After a few minutes searching I was lucky
enough to locate an Eastern Common Froglet (Crinia signifera),
hiding among a few grass blades. This species is only the size of a 20c
coin, and males call from hidden locations on the ground close the the
water’s edge. Although small with a plain old name, these frogs are
spectacular little critters with beautiful markings and a grating
‘crick-crick-crick’ call which is loud enough to make up for their other
shortcomings! Here are some picture of one:
As well as the
small ‘cricks’ coming from the grass underfoot, we noticed other sounds
coming from tree branches on the bank of the creek opposite to us.
Curiosity drew me closer and I shed my shoes to wade across the
shin-numbing waters in search of the ‘noise makers’. When frogs hear
human footsteps they often go quiet: this is exactly what happened and I
spent quite some time sitting quietly on a log waiting before another
frog thought about calling. Eventually his urge to attract a female won
out and he let go a loud rattle which interrupted the sound of babbling
water. I quickly scanned a nearby bush with my head torch and spotted a
small brown shape sitting on a thin branch. To my delight, this was a
Southern Brown Tree Frog (Litoria ewingii),
a species very similar to the closely related Slender Tree Frog found
over in Perth. As their name suggests, tree frogs are brilliant
climbers, and he was soon clambering over my fingers and up my arm as I
attempted to grab hold of him!
