Dainty green treefrog

We’ve been hearing and seeing a few frogs lately, on warm wet evenings (although some of the evenings have been surprisingly cool for a Queensland summer).

Clicking froglets (Crinia signifera) have been very vocal, and we’ve heard a variety of others, including spotted and striped marsh frogs, tusked frogs, the green tree frog and the great barred frogs.

This little beauty is the dainty green treefrog, Litoria gracilenta, on a Dianella (native flax lily) next to the small pond near our wildlife ecology centre.

The crested shriketit was a surprise – only the second time we’ve seen it here in 30 years.

The pale-vented bush-hen moved in last month, but that was the first time we have seen or heard it here.

This morning before breakfast  I conducted one of my regular birding walks around Andrew Drynan Reserve (just around the corner from the Araucaria property, and the site we usually use for our camping guests). I wanted to do this before school holidays started, and as had I hoped, the reserve was free from campers this morning.

Pacific baza

Highlights for the morning included:

• a Pacific baza being mobbed by a couple of very vocal spangled drongos
• the calls of rose-crowned fruitdove from the forest (hadn’t seen them here since last summer)
• the calls of a noisy pitta from the forest (only the second time in several months)
• three eastern rosellas foraging on the grass of the campground (often see pale-headed, not so often the eastern

The baza used to be known as the crested hawk, which more immediately decribed it to those unfamiliar with the word ‘baza’.  The name change was to bring it into line with international naming, as there are other baza species in Asia, Africa and Madagascar. Unlike most hawks, they often forage amongst foliage, eating insects and small vertebrates.

Other birds seen or heard this morning included channel-billed cuckoo (very vocal!) masked lapwing, wonga pigeon, brush cuckoo, common koel, pheasant coucal, rainbow lorikeet, galah (flock of 15 in the camping area), laughing kookaburra,  Lewin’s honeyeater (eating fruit of the introduced lantana), noisy miner, olive-backed oriole, figbird, eastern whipbird, eastern yellow robin, Australian magpie, pied currawong and  Torresian crow

Andrew Drynan Reserve

We hadn’t seen Wilbur ( our more-or-less resident koala) for about a month.  Then a couple of days ago, when I was doing a regular bird survey in Andrew Drynan Reserve (the camping and picnic ground just around the corner from home) I spotted him climbing a gum tree (pictured to the right).

A few minutes later I saw another koala – a smaller one that I think is a female (pictured below). They weren’t exactly close – opposite ends of the campground in fact – but koalas are generally solitary, and males aren’t always very gentlemanly with their mates.

But we’re hoping there has been some romance and that we may see Wilbur’s progeny some time later in the year.

The cicadas have their own fascination though, and Darren was able to video one in the process of emerging from its old skin last month. I enjoy their calls most of the time – although a few times have felt like calling out to ask them to give it a rest for just a few minutes.

Having been so concerned that the platypus might never return after the massive flood of early 2008 destroyed burrows, creek banks and riparian vegetation, this was wonderful!

This is the first koala we’ve seen at home for almost two years, so we were very pleased when he moved in, and even more pleased that he’s decided to stick around a while

Breeding season starts soon, so we hope a female might join him briefly.  I say briefly because koalas are solitary creatures, coming together for breeding but then going their separate ways again.

We hope this and other  photos showing the pattern of markings on his rump will help us recognize him as an individual if he moves on and then returns some day.

platypus

Platypus have lived in  our part of Running Creek (Scenic Rim, Queensland)  for many years, but during the first half of each year they can be a little unpredictable, turning up in several places along our kilometre of creek frontage.  Around the middle of the year they seem to settle down to the serious business of deciding where they’ll be nesting and then raising their young. Wherever we see them appearing several times a week in July tends to be where we’ll then be seeing them for the rest of the year. This time it is in a spot we can walk to within half a minute from our Wildlife Ecology Centre and watch quietly from the cliffs above.