On Tuesday night I was invited out again to go wallum frog monitoring at Bribie Island with Harry Hines and Ed Meyer (two of QLD’s frog experts) and a few others. This monitoring has is in its third (or fourth?) year now and is collecting valuable data on Wallum Sedgefrog populations. Following the recent deluge of rain several weeks ago it was going to be interesting to see how much water was sitting on the transects as there usually is. Wallum habitats are characterised by sandy soils and contain very acidic, ephemeral water that a select few frog species have adapted to handle. Litoria olongburensis (Wallum Sedgefrogs) are the target species on these transects.
As it turned out, despite the several hundred mils of rain that fell several weeks ago, there wasn’t as much pooled water as would usually be expected, most likely due to the extensive drought period preceding the rainfall. As a consequence of this, we recorded the lowest counts on record for the target species.
However, on one particular transect, we recorded the highest count of another wallum-dependent species, Crinia tinnula (Wallum Froglet). This is possibly due to the lower water level and matted sedges which allows this un-webbed frog to climb onto easier.
Amongst the wallum species, the occasional Litoria tyleri (Laughing Treefrog) also shows up.
Once we’d finished all four transects and discussed our findings whilst munching on chocolate mint slice biscuits and leaning on the Hilux bonnet, Harry and Ed were keen to visit some recently burnt sedge and heath land elsewhere on the island. Sure, burnt vegetation isn’t all that exciting, but the prospect of finding a rare skink species hidden inside a particular burnt-out plant species was. I tagged along but found it hard not to notice the frogs that were around.
Awesome shots! Looked like it was a great night 🙂