The day after finding the Naked Treefrogs next door, I was out at Magnolia/Teddington, along Tinana Creek which is just past Tiaro and a fair way off the main highway. Why was I there? It was part of my work placement with the Mary River Catchment Coordinating Committee (MRCCC) and I had the opportunity to join Peter as we visited a few landholders on large properties to discuss management prospects, such as wild pigs. These feral animals cause havoc to cane farms and destroy habitat. The day was a great opportunity to meet with property owners and learn from them and the involvement and relationship between themselves and MRCCC.
One of Peter’s interests was if whether the feral pigs dig up the earth in search for burrowing frogs and if the pigs eat them. Whilst we didn’t have the opportunity to search the contents of a pig’s stomach, I was able to investigate the types of habitat there and assess if I thought there’d be suitable frog habitat there (potentially for Mixophyes iteratus (Giant Barred Frogs)). It’s so dry out there but once we get some good rain I might return to do some frogging at night. I found a tadpole in a stagnant pool of water at least.
Anyways, it was back at this property’s house that I made the most interesting find in the least likely place!
It was in this that I found dozens of frogs either swimming in or attached to the sides of the pool!
The pool was drawn to my attention because the land owner said there were toads and toad tadpoles in there. There were two or three toads and potentially some toad tadpoles, but there seemed very few compared to all the frogs. The frogs are Litoria latopalmata (Broad-palmed Rocketfrogs)!
One of the tips for designing a frog-friendly pond is to ensure that the frogs have a way of leaving the water and getting out of the pond. Obviously the pool didn’t have any such escape-routes and I wasn’t sure if the frogs had ever been able to get out of the pool, so I found a long piece of timber and placed in upright in the pool. Hopefully the little fella’s use it 🙂
I also spotted a frog jumping along the scorching hot pool fence – a L. rubella (Naked treefrog)!
That night I went out frog monitoring with Eva from the MRCCC at two sites near Traveston, right along beside the Mary River. These sites have been extensively damaged by floods earlier in the year. We saw mostly L. wilcoxii (Stony-creek frogs), but also found and heard a colony of flying foxes in a large fig tree and also heard and saw many Physignathus lesueurii lesueurii (Eastern Water Dragons), plus a Platyplectrum ornatum (Ornate Burrowing Frog), however it was off the transect (darn!), but still my first sighting for the season.
