Please give wildlife a fair go!

 

Springtime is a vibrant wonderful time of the year. Frogs become active just before, during and after rain with males competing against one another to see who can create the loudest din and male reptiles in particular are on the move looking for a mate. Unfortunately all that activity brings them into contact with people more often than normal and in a lot of cases the  reptiles especially, come off second best from these encounters. In the past four days I have seen one large Bluetongue, one Carpet Python, one Common Tree Snake, two other un-identifiable snakes (un-identifiable because they were mashed into the road) and one large Eastern Water Dragon dead on the roads within a few kilometres of my home. I know that a lot of the time it's very difficult, even impossible to avoid hitting an animal with your vehicle but I also know that there are quite a few arseholes out there who either deliberately run down or make no effort to avoid wildlife especially snakes. If you are one of them please accept this gift of my middle finger, to everyone else keep up the good work and please do your best to avoid wildlife on our roads especially over the next few months.

 

I took an early morning walk this morning and once again the reptiles were few and far between. This little Elegant Snake-eyed Skink was quite obliging though.

 

 

 

This one was a bit more wary but check out the colouration on his legs. Very light for this species.

 



In the past few weeks I have been fiddling around with textures in my photography and also trying to make a scene out of quite a small patch of ground. Below is a few examples from this morning. I actually have an idea to use these types of photos for something and once I get my book website up and running I will explain that in more detail. I'll post a link soon.

 

 



 

That was it for reptiles and amphibians today although I did see many birds and managed to photograph a few although not all that well. Considering this is a blog about reptiles and amphibians I guess I had better throw in a couple of photos of them otherwise you won't bother visiting in the future. Below is a large Robust Blind Snake photographed earlier this year. As far as Blind Snakes go it was particularly easy to photograph.

 



 

A Bandy Bandy, one of my all time favourite Elapids.

 



The ubiquitous Cane Toad. These guys don't have too many friends and rightly so I guess but you can not deny that they are an amazing looking animal. Check out that eye.

 

 



 

An unusually coloured and patterned Eastern Sedge Frog.

 

A cheeky Eastern Water Skink.

 



 

A Stunning Spotted Python.

 

A Keelback, one of the few animals capable of consuming the Cane Toad with few to no ill effects.
You can clearly see where they get their common name in this photograph.

 





A Leaden Delma photographed in the dunes of a South East Queensland beach.

 

 



And finally a Yellow Spotted Monitor, spotted peering out from behind a tree.

 

 



 

 

Hopefully that's enough pics to keep you guys interested until I can find a few more critters to photograph. As I said in an earlier post I have about twenty five animals that I haven't been able to locate to date that I need to photograph in order to complete the book. Some of them will probably be quite commonly recorded by some of you depending upon where you are, but for me they have so far proven elusive. Hopefully in the next few months I can tick a few of these off and bring them to you here on my blog. The animals in question are:


SOUTHERN SNAPPING TURTLE (Elseya albagula)

RED-EARED SLIDER (Trachemys scripta elegans)

OLIVE DELMA (Delma inornata)

COLLARED DELMA (Delma torquata)

FIVE-CLAWED WORM SKINK (Anomolopus mackayii)

ARCANE CTENOTUS (Ctenotus arcanus)

BROWN-BACKED YELLOW-LINED CTENOTUS (Ctenotus eurydice)

TRYON'S SKINK (Eulamprus tryoni) This genus name has changed TBA

EASTERN MULCH SLIDER (Lerista fragilis)

YOLK BELLIED SNAKE-SKINK  (Ophioscincus ophioscincus)

CONDAMINE EARLESS DRAGON (Tympanocryptis condaminensis)

PROXIMUS BLIND SNAKE (Ramphotyphlops proximus)

COOLOOLA BLIND SNAKE (Ramphotyphlops silvia)

BROWN-SNOUTED BLIND SNAKE (Ramphotyphlops wiedii)

GREY SNAKE (Hemiaspis damelii)

DUNMALL'S SNAKE (Furina dunmalli)

SUPERB COLLARED FROG (Litoria brevipes)

COOLOOLA SEDGE FROG (litoria cooloolensis)

WHIRRING TREE FROG (Litoria revelata)

EASTERN BANJO FROG (Limnodynastes dumerilii)

RED AND YELLOW MOUNTAIN FROG (Philoria kundagungan)

LOVERIDGE'S FROG (Philoria loveridgei)

FLEAY'S BARRED FROG (Mixophyes fleayi)

RED-BACKED BROOD FROG (Pseudophryne coriacea)

EASTERN GUNGAN (Uperoleia laevigata)
 

 

Once again thanks for reading and if you have any questions or anything to add please don't hesitate to ask or to do so.

 

Cheers,

 

Mike.