First Frog Foray

 The wonderful season of Makaru (winter) has arrived in the Perth Hills for 2011, and what a great start it’s been! Although we’ve all nearly forgotten what it is like to get proper rainfall, the months of June and July (so far) have given us a promising start to wash away the previous years of drought.

One of the first creatures to rekindle their lives after months of dryness are the Crinias, species of tiny frogs that make up for their size with their loud voices. At my dam in Parkerville there are now three, sometimes four species of Crinia that have moved in since I began revegetating it with wetland plants five years ago. (Well, technically three Crinias, one is a Geocrinia). Two of the species have begun breeding already, with the males calling loudly to attract mates. It’s such a pleasure to listen outside as dusk approaches and hear the place come ALIVE!

At the moment, the Bleating Froglet (Crinia pseudinsignifera) is     dominating the ear drums, and I have spent a few evenings on my hands and knees in the mud locating them to photograph.

Here is a male who has just ceased calling after I shone my headtorch on him :)

After snapping this shot, I was then THRILLED to find 2 males fighting - one had his jaws clamped onto the other’s abdomen, and was quite forcefully ‘asking’ him to move on and find his own place from which to call. Well, I’m sure if he could, he would ask politely!

Next thing I knew the first male had flipped the other one on his back and really was asking his pal to get outa there!

Another species calling as loudly as the Bleaters is called the Clicking Froglet (Crinia glauerti), which is only about the size of a 5c piece (below). He makes a really loud rattling sound that makes your ears hurt if you get too close! After looking VERY hard in the mud I managed to photograph this little one trying to tell all the females that HE is the one for them!

I’m 27. Who says finding frogs is only for kids?

Don't Litter!

If you ever throw rubbish into the bush, you’re STUPID!! 
And if you ever throw rubbish that is able to be recycled into the bush, you’re even more stupid!

During walks in natural areas I have collected many aluminium cans and bottles to bring home for the recycle bin, each time feeling very angry that careless environmental vandals could discard their waste in such a way.

One such can I picked up today had a funny rattle inside, so I cut it open to find this:

 

You’re probably wondering “WHAT IS THAT!?”

Well, it’s the head of a Tiger Snake. This poor creature would have taken hours to die a painful death after it’s head got caught in the dreaded can. Reptiles are often attracted to cans and bottles by sugary residue inside, or simply when they are searching for a place to hide. Unless they are found early, the ultimate outcome is a death sentence.

While you could easily think “it was only a snake”, and not be too concerned, remember that snakes play a vital role in our environment by controlling rats and mice, and will NOT bite you unless you stand on them or try to handle them.

Even so, snakes or not, no animal deserves to die a slow death because SOMEBODY has no respect for their environment. Amen.

Little Eagle

One of my earliest memories of seeing an eagle was at the edge of my dam at home. I was only young - about 10 - and I’d been catching frogs or fish or something at the water’s edge. It was Kambarang (late Spring) and the water level had already dropped quite a bit. Wood ducks were accumulating in numbers around the dam at this time of year as the broods of ducklings reached adult size.

The whooshing wingbeats of about twenty Wood Ducks clipping the treetops as they descended swiftly downward to the dam made me look up suddenly. In the commotion of their landing I hadn’t noticed the speck spearing in after them, but it did, and before I could realise what was happening, an eagle dropped like a bullet and killed one of the ducks outright as it landed. BANG!! The duck lay lifeless beneath the eagle’s firm grasp, and the rest of the flock dispersed into the surrounds like greased lightning. A sudden neck-jerk had the eagle’s eyes fixed firmly on me as I stared in amazement. I’d just seen my first kill.

After only thirty seconds or so, the eagle spooked and took off, leaving the duck behind and disappearing from view as quickly as it had arrived. As a small boy I wasn’t aware of which species this predator had been. It was only years later, with the beauty of hindsight, that I had ‘identified’ the picture frozen in my mind as a Little Eagle.

This species has a rather plain and confusing common name:
“I saw this bird of prey... pale underneath, smaller than a wedgie.”
“It could have been a Little Eagle?”
 “Yes, the eagle was quite little. What are the names of some little eagles?”
“No, that IS its name - a Little Eagle!”
“Oh - that’s funny. I thought you meant little as in little, not little as in Little!”

I now regularly sight Little Eagles over Parkerville, though they are far less common in the general region as Wedgies or Accipiters (Goshawk/Sparrowhawks).

Today I was lucky to snap the above shot of one as it was frantically flapping away from the snapping beaks of aggressive magpies. The eagle alerted me to its presence by its yelping call, which had me jump up from my computer and rush outside with my camera and long lens.

Nature is always hunting, lurking, fleeing, calling, moving and working around us. I think sounds are the most important thing in guiding us to many exciting experiences. We just need to tune in and listen.

Kimberley M-A-G-I-C!

This fabulously marked, intriguing and often cryptic specimen of a bird - a Nankeen Night-heron (Nycticorax caledonicus) - was the last image etched into my mind after returning to Perth. I crept up the verandah post and streeeeetched on my belly across the corrugated iron roof to get as close as I could to this juvenile bird, who sat silently in a eucalypt, unfazed by the din of drunken laughter and live music below us. Minutes before, some party-goers had pointed him out to me, roosting in a low sapling near the campfire. He then flushed from this perch, and in about three strokes of his silent wings, missed the live band’s drummer by inches as he flapped up to the new perched. What a magic moment! One that summed up a magic time, with inspiring people, in a magic location. A privilege to be part of.

I’ve just spent 3 weeks exploring the gobsmacking landscapes of the vast El Questro Wilderness Park on the 2010 Australian Geographic Scientific Expedition. You’ve probably already guessed that it was a remarkable, once-in-a-lifetime experience, filled with too many stories to talk about here. The only thing I can say is look at the Photo Album which contains a small fraction of the photos I took while I was up there... then if you’re keen to see these things for real, keep your eyes on the Australian Geographic website for news of another trip in 2012.

Ok... just one more image to leave you with! You could guess it was going to be a Sea Eagle :-)

Urban Eagles

On my way down to Margaret River today, I was driving through the Jandakot area when a shape caught my attention. It was a dark shape, high in a power pylon a few hundred metres from the road. I pulled over to look, and noticed another similar shape in the next pylon along. After inspecting the shapes with binoculars, I realised they were large bird nests, and my gut told me the culprit was an Osprey. These marine raptors readily habituate and nest on man-made structures, and I had seen this many times before. But there was no water nearby - the nests were in the middle of Banksia woodland! Could it be a wedge-tailed eagle?

In other parts of Australia there have been records of wedgies nesting on pylons, windmills and other artificial structures, but it is a rare occurrence. During my studies of eagles in Perth for the last 10+ years, I had always known wedgies to nest only in trees, well away from any road or building. But these nests certainly looked like eagle to me.

Let’s hope the upcoming breeding season will tell me the answer!

720 ABC Perth

To help promote the Australian PREMIERE of ‘A Wedged Tale’ in Perth, I appeared on 720 ABC local radio and chatted to Gillian O’Shaughnessy on the 'Afternoons' segment today. Gill was fantastic at making me feel very comfortable and was very interested in all things eagle related. We even had a caller share his experience flying with eagles in a glider, thousands of metres above the ground. What a way to see them!!

My sincere thanks go to Gill and ABC Perth for having me on. If you’re interested in listening, click below to hear a recording of the interview.

Bluetongue!

A little wander along Campbell’s Creek this afternoon gave me an exciting discovery - a bluetongue lizard! I found him crawling through the grass and managed to catch him for a closer look... and to show Gill’s niece and nephew who were waiting across the road. Nothing like a bit of show and tell for the children!

The Eastern Bluetongue (Tiliqua scincoides) is a common reptile, being one of the largest and more conspicuous skinks in Castlemaine. It has beautiful smooth, scaly skin, and as its name suggests, a gorgeous tongue that shines iridescent blue in the sunlight. When chanced upon during a bushwalk, bluetongues will open their mouth and hiss at you in an effort to appear larger and more threatening. I’ve experienced this many times (with Bobtail skinks in the west) and nearly died of fright - glancing down to see a reptile suddenly hissing at you is quite alarming in a land of venomous snakes.

Bluetongue lizards are ground-dwelling animals, moving around in rocky and grass areas and feeding on a variety of plant and animal life including slugs, snails and flowers. You might be interested to know that this species is a live-bearer: it gives birth to 2 or 3 young, which are deposited in a protected place like a pile of wood or rocks. There are four species in Australia: Eastern, Western, Northern and Centralian. All have smooth skin (and a blue tongue!) but the markings on each are quite different.

It was great to be able to make this discovery so close to houses and a busy main road. And even better to be able to take the opportunity to show amazing native wildlife to young children. Next time you’re out walking in the drier months, keep an eye out - you might be lucky enough to see one of these amazing creatures.

Da Eas' Side!

Last night I hopped on a plane and flew across the Nullarbor to spend a few weeks in the eastern states. The initial purpose of my visit is worked-related: I’m thrilled to be involved with Australian Geographic in a series of forums called ‘Experience the Kimberley’, where I’ve been asked to give a short but inspiring talk about Kimberley wildlife on three evenings in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. This will be the first opportunity I’ve had to spend time in any of these places other than waiting inside their airports, so I’m really looking forward to it! After my work commitments, I’m on holiday with Gill, and we’ll be traveling to Castlemaine, Canberra, back to Sydney and lastly the Blue Mountains.

This morning I managed to get out and about and explore some parts of Sydney, including the famous harbour and Botanic Gardens, snapping photos of resident Australian White Ibis (Threskiornis mollucca) and Masked Lapwing (Vanellus miles). Then I caught the ferry across to Manly, and met with Kylie Piper from AG for lunch at Manly beach. I was nearly late for lunch because of my excitement to explore and search for wildlife as soon as I’d got off the ferry! After getting up close to a beautiful Golden Orb Spider just near the Manly ferry depot, I found some Rainbow Lorikeets (Trichoglossus haematodus) nesting inside a small tree-hollow, right along the footpath where joggers and walkers busily filed past me. The adult lorikeets rushed in to feed their youngster, who I had seen inside the hollow through a small crack in the side of the tree, then quickly left. I lay on my belly waiting for the juvenile lorikeet to poke his head out, which he did, then an Eastern Water Skink scurried up to me for a closer look. Then it was off to lunch!

Here's a few snaps of the creatures I've seen so far. Keep watching to see what I find in the next two destinations.

Australian White Ibis near the Sydney Central train station.

Adult Masked Lapwing.

Golden Orb Spider near Manly ferry depot.

Eastern Water Skink.

The Rainbow Lorikeet nest tree, right near a footpath!

A nestling Rainbow Lorikeet peers out of his nest hollow.