Frogs and Snakes

Frogs turn up in unusual places:

This is a female Stony-creek Frog (Litoria jungguy):

IMG_7400

 

This  Common Green Tree-frog (Litoria caerulea) spent  the long dry spell in the overflow of an outdoor basin, quite safe from a butcherbird’s beak or a snake’s gaping jaws.

frog in a hole

Another frog often hopped  back to its hiding place underneath our veranda roof via the birdbath on the veranda railing, leaving behind tell-tales signs :

frog splash

 

After the first substantial showers, our pond hosted several frog orgies. This pair of Barred Frogs (Mixophyes coggeri) was still active after sunrise. The female was keen to get rid of the male, telling him with several deep, short grunts to release his grip on her . This is the only occasion when one hears female frogs calling.

Barred Frogs Feb2015_1

She was probably keen to seek shelter for the day, and rightly so: this large Keelback entered the pond just moments later. When I saw it emerge from the water and disappear into the forest, it did not sport a big bulging belly!

The Keelback (Tropidonophis mairii) is the only Australian snake which can eat the toxic cane toads without ill effect. Its ancestry lies in Asia, where snakes had a long time to adapt to poisonous toads.

Keelback Snake 2015_1

Named for its strongly keeled scales, which give it a “rough”-looking skin, it is easy to identify. The only other snake, which looks similar is the highly venomous Rough-scaled snake (Tropidechis carinatus), which fortunately lives at higher altitudes in North Queensland, and not around Kuranda. You can tell them apart by having a close look at the scales between their eyes and nostrils (preferably by taking a photo and zooming in, rather than approaching the snake too closely!).

Most colubrid snakes, like the Keelback, have a loreal scale between eye and nostril,

Keelback 2015_1

 

whereas in venomous elapid snakes (to which Death Adders, Taipans and Brown Snakes belong), the scale containing the nostril touches the scale which is near the eye:

Rough-scaled Snake2015_1

 

 

The wet season has arrived! March 2012

The wet season has finally arrived in Kuranda! We had more than 400mm of rain since Friday, our little creek is 1 metre higher than normally and the nearby Barron Falls are at their best since January 2007.
It will be some time before the cassowaries come visiting us again, their preferred creek crossing is 2 metres under water.
The red-necked crakes (Rallina tricolor) are enjoying the wet, being more active all over the forest and garden during daylight hours, so they are much easier to observe. Their 3 chicks, little black fluff-balls on long, skinny legs only 3 weeks ago, are now almost as big as the parents.
This yellow-spotted honeyeater (Meliphaga notata) found a dry spot for the night:

Common tree snake hatchling (Dendrelaphis punctulatus) in the rain:

Barron Falls on Monday, 19/03/2012:[

Visiting Cassowary, March 2012

February 2012

The resident cassowary with his 2 three months old chicks is visiting almost daily to feed on the many native fruits which are available at the moment. They particularly like the fruits of the native Black Palm (Normanby normanbia) , native Ginger (Alpinia coerulea) and the exotic Queen Palm (Syagrum romanzoffia).

This season’s chicks seem feistier than usual, they are already chasing the red-legged pademelons and our male brush-turkey, who has his mound just behind our pond.

The brush-turkey always acts very nervously when the cassowaries are here, torn between fight and flight.

I do not think that the cassowaries pose a threat to the brush-turkey’s brood, but the turkey has every reason to discourage the lace monitors (Varanus varius) from coming too close – they would dig out and eat the eggs.

He vehemently defends the area around his mound, chasing the goannas across the garden into the forest, throwing dirt and mulch at them and  the lizards mostly end up clinging to a tree out of the turkey’s reach.

This one lost the tip of its tail in an earlier incident:

cassowary chick chasing brush turkey: