Category: wildlife

Frogs and Snakes

February 17, 2015January 29, 2020 Christina

Frogs turn up in unusual places:

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

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.

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 :

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.

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.

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,

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:

Wet Season February 2015

February 15, 2015January 29, 2020 Christina

With the recent advent of rain we have seen an abundance of insects (many stick insects !).

As big as my hand, this Hawk Moth (Coequosa australasiae), came to our light-sheet on a very rainy evening:

Another visitor was this Stag Beetle:

Spotlighting in our rainforest, we came across a pair of sleeping dragonflies:

and a group of sleeping male native bees (Mellitidia tomentifera):

This Blue-backed Bee is one of many, collecting pollen in our garden:

If you are interested in native bees, you’ll find many photos and descriptions under the native bee project at www.bowerbird.org.

Another interesting insect is the Stalk-eyed Fly: The males have their eyes arranged like hammerhead sharks:

A piece of banana served as battleground:

News and not- so- good news from the Kuranda rainforest

February 14, 2015January 12, 2020 Christina

The one remaining cassowary chick ( see last blog), was not seen again from mid-November 2014. The female (“Missy”) initiated mating almost immediately. Male and female cassowaries visited us jointly a few times in December, January and early February. There were fewer, compared to previous years, visits by the male. We do not know whether he is sitting on eggs, visiting us in his spare time (this would be unusual), or taking a sabbatical.

By early January most of the daily-visiting Chestnut breasted Mannikins (Lonchura castaneothorax) had left. For many species this is the breeding season. In the case of birds it means they are more vocal/territorial. This helped in observing Yellow-breasted Boatbills (Machaerirhynchus flaviventer) on our property, they have a distinctive call.

Pacific Bazas (Aviceda subcristata), too, have a very characteristic call, and they have been very noisy around our place recently, flying through or just above the canopy and snatching katydids and other juicy insects from the foliage, which they then ate leisurely.

Again the Sunbirds (Nectarinia jugularis) had a very hard time producing offspring: the Butcherbirds (Craticus quoyi) destroyed two nests with eggs, which were not consumed. Anecdotal evidence around our house: fewer than one in four attempts to raise chicks has been successful .

The Spectacled Monarch flycatcher (Monarcha trivirgatus) have more success, although their nest sites appear to be quite exposed to aerial predators. All the nests, which we have found so far, were neat cups, located in the fork of a small tree, just 2-3m off the ground.

This one is not quite finished, yet:

Until early February North Queensland, including the rainforest areas, was in drought and considerably too hot. Flora and fauna showed signs of heatstress. This pair of Victoria’s Riflebirds (Ptilotis victoriae), was hanging out in a shady spot for almost half an hour – giving me plenty of time to fetch my camera.

A Red-leafed Fig (Ficus congesta), which we planted near the cabin a few years ago, is fruiting several times a year, and not only attracts Double-eyed Fig Parrots (Cyclopsitta diophthalma) . We also observed two Blossom Bats (Syconycteris australis) and one Tube-nosed Bat (Nyctimene robinsoni) feasting on figs in December.

Victoria’s Riflebirds and Cassowaries

October 21, 2014January 29, 2020 Christina

Exciting news about two of our iconic species:

Mr Cassowary (“Dad”) has returned with a new chick (he had two this year, but the other one succumbed to a leg injury).

The little one is already quite adventurous, running across the rocks around our pond, under Dad’s watchful eye:

A large tree was snapped off during the cyclone in April , and we decided to cut off the splintered top of the stump, in the hope that the smoother surface might entice a Victoria’s Riflebird (Ptiloris victoriae) to use it as a dance floor for his courtship display.

Last week a young riflebird (he is still wearing his juvenile plumage, having not yet changed into the splendid black and metallic turquoise adult colours ) rewarded our efforts:

Not a very pleasant voice, but he certainly knows how to move (and then he became annoyed by a piece of bark…):

This Tree Monitor (Varanus scalaris) inspected the tree stump in the afternoon:

Another legacy of the cyclone are a lot of broken branches and tree trunks, which we gathered in a large pile in the forest at our garden’s edge. It now houses a couple of Red-necked Crakes (Rallina tricolor), who emerge regularly to forage for insects and worms.

They like banana, too, as does this Major Skink (Egernia frerei), (this one is about 30cm long):

Many birds are starting to mate and build nests, Pacific Bazas (Aviceda subcristata) and Wompoo Fruit-doves (Ptilinopus magnificus) are especially vocal.

It has been very dry , but as Dad has only one chick to raise this year, finding enough food should not be a problem.

The (almost) invisible python

June 19, 2014January 29, 2020 Christina

Loud scolding by several species of small birds late in the morning brought a 2 meter long Amethystine python (Morelia amethistina) to our attention.
It was making its way up along the frond of a large tree fern, and when it had reached the crown of the fern, it began to coil itself into ever tighter loops until it almost appeared to tie itself into knots! A short while later it had all but disappeared from sight.

( Can you see it? Just to the right of centre):

Soaking up the sunshine in its elevated position, it stayed there all day, but in the early evening started to travel down a fern frond, through a fig tree towards our bird feeder, which also attracts small native rainforest rodents during the night -the python probably detected their smell.

The following photo gives you an idea of the beautiful iridescent coloration of the Amethystine Python:

In this picture, you can see the heat-sensitive pits along the lower lip, which is typical for pythons:

Yesterday a rare visitor arrived: a juvenile Satin Bowerbird (Ptilinorhynchus violaceus). It spent all day opposite our front veranda, nibbling fruit. This is our first sighting of this species in Kuranda; Satin Bowerbirds usually occur above 600 meters in north Queensland.

The fruiting Pandanus and palm trees, of which we have many, are attracting several Spotted Catbirds (Ailuroedus melanotis) and Victoria’s Riflebirds (Ptiloris victoriae). At present we can watch three brown (female or juvenile) and one adult black riflebird in our garden every day.

A few weeks ago the first of probably many (last year we had a flock of over 50) Chestnut-breasted Mannikins (Lonchura castaneothorax) arrived; they were joined yesterday by another pair with very demanding and vocal offspring in tow.

A rather enervating youngster, a juvenile Sulphur-crested Cockatoo (Cacatua galerita) is keeping its parents busy regurgitating food with a constant, demanding wail.

CASSOWARY UPDATE:

Human activities and the survival of cassowaries are almost always mutually exclusive:

Unfortunately, last week the resident female was killed by a vehicle on Black Mountain Road . As Dad has not made an appearance over the last two weeks, our hope is that he is currently sitting on her eggs, at least partly keeping her genes in the pool (they had been mating for the last few weeks). She had only replaced Dad’s partner of many years, “Missy”, last year, and was in the prime of her life. Missy is still in the area and will, hopefully, mate with Dad again.

“Wattle”, also known as “Harriet”, was easily recognized by her unusual wattles:

Frogs and Snakes

Wet Season February 2015

News and not- so- good news from the Kuranda rainforest

Victoria’s Riflebirds and Cassowaries

The (almost) invisible python

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