As the title may suggest (for three reasons), I was out frogging again last night but this time with Maroochy Waterwatch whom I’d joined for a 96 hour work placement recently. This monitoring site was perched midway up on the Blackall Range at Dulong but nestled deep inside forest that was just agriculture paddocks 50-odd years ago. So yes, it’s an amazing transformation! Platypus Creek runs through this particular property where the endangered Mixophyes iteratus (Giant Barred frogs) are known to inhabit.
Despite arriving a bit early whilst the sun was setting, I could hear about three M. iteratus calling along the creek and spotted a female Litoria wilcoxii (Stony-creek frog) hopping through a patch of grass. As time progressed we heard a L. gracilenta (Graceful Treefrog), L. fallax (Eastern Sedgefrog) and of course M. iteratus calling.
As we searched we were approaching closer and closer to the calling activity of the Giant Barred’s. Then bingo, the first GBF record for the evening! All up we found six adult M. iteratus. The calling activity lasted throughout our monitoring.
Turns out there was also a representative from the reptilian family with us too as we spotted this Dendrelaphis punctulata (Common/Green Tree Snake) (I think) slithering unperturbed between ourselves and the frogs. Initially I was told it was a juvenile Pseudonaja textilis (Eastern/Common Brown Snake)! I was pretty close to it 😛 (And yeah, my snake ID skills aren’t that great…)
It was just as we were about to leave that I spotted the nicest surprise of the night though. After a few moments of deploying identification skills, I realised I’d found a juvenile M. iteratus on the edge of the creek! This was of course super exciting as we’d never seen a juvenile GBF before.
After eventually pulling myself away from the new-found excitement, I encountered two more adult GBFs as we left the site. The final one was sitting up proud and tall, looking very handsome (and beautiful) indeed.
Oh, and the three reasons I was spoilt were:
- Out frog monitoring again for the second night in a row
- Spotted seven M. iteratus and heard three or four calling
- Spotted a juvenile M. iteratus and had never seen one before