Well, as (almost) promised, I returned to frogging last night, once Youth Group had finished. An additional bonus to the warm temperature during the day was the short but fairly decent shower of rain around 9pm that had been forecast but I wasn’t holding my hopes on. On my way to the frog site I found last night that allowed me access right up close, I encountered a couple dozen frogs hopping across the roads while skilfully positioning my car as to avoid squashing them.
On my arrival to the site, which I’ll now call Frog Hollow, I was not disappointed. Armed with my Mum’s Sony DSLR camera (thanks Mum!), I approached the dam, though had to return to the car to swap my joggers for gumboots so I could get as close as possible to the action. A species list of the calls I could hear were Litoria peronii (Emerald-spotted treefrog), L. tylerii (Laughing treefrog), L. fallax (Eastern Sedgefrog), Limnodynastes peronii (Striped marshfrog) and Adelotus brevis (Tusked frog) – so I was not at all disappointed with what I heard!
In the Gallery on the Frogging Around site, I’ve got the life-cycle of the frog displayed in photographs. However, there was one stage – or image I was missing that I had on my ‘to find’ list – frogs in amplexus (the mating position of frogs and toads). So I was thrilled to find the two frogs below…
So, what’s this ‘mysterious “plonks”‘ all about, you ask? Whilst frogging/photographing, there were loud ‘plonks’ coming from the middle of the dam I was at. I hadn’t a clue what sort of creature could be making such loud noises and I knew I could rule out crocodiles 😛 . This persisted for a while (how long for I hadn’t been keeping track of), until I heard a murmur from behind me. Thinking I may have been ‘sprung’ by a neighbour wondering what I was doing, I turned around and my headlamp picked up two boys laying down on the ground behind some trees – the same two boys who’d been throwing sand at each other with some girls a few hours before at Youth Group (one of whom lives along this road (who I obviously know)) and who had now been throwing rocks into the dam. Anyway, they had their laughs! Good thing they were there though as one of them found a frog just away from where I’d been photographing from the water’s egde. I was excited but surprised to find it was a Litoria wilcoxii (Stoney-creek frog) (below). These guys aren’t as easy to photograph cause they move quite fast.
By now it was nearing 11pm and I had to head home, so I drove the boys to their home and picked up my sisters who’d been staying there whilst I was frogging. Once home, I discovered I’d brought some of the fauna along with me, though not an amphibian but an arachnid, or more specifically, a tick riding on my chest. I doubt this will be my first encounter with ticks whilst frogging around.
Ixodes holocyclius (Australian paralysis tick). From chest to stove top to make sure it didn’t find a ride again. And ok, the mark it left was nothing shocking.
After quite a good night, I’m looking forward to my next outing. Stay tuned!