{"id":173,"date":"2012-10-12T11:37:22","date_gmt":"2012-10-12T01:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/froggingaround.com\/blog\/?p=173"},"modified":"2012-12-24T11:41:47","modified_gmt":"2012-12-24T01:41:47","slug":"down-came-the-rain-and-brought-the-barred-frogs-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/froggingaround.com\/blog\/2012\/10\/down-came-the-rain-and-brought-the-barred-frogs-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Down came the rain and brought the Barred-frogs out"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the title obviously suggests (which is meant to be read rhythmically), we (including the whole of south-east Queensland) received decent rainfall yesterday afternoon. Nambour received around 12mm while Warwick received about 30mm. So, apart from the grass being given a new lease on life, I was also keen on getting out that night and doing some frogging! I was able to recruit a friend of mine, Connor (very appreciative of him coming along with me) and off we headed to Mapleton Falls National Park (where Rowena had previously told me the frogs appear everywhere after rain). I was a bit unsure of what the anuran turn-out would be because the rain had brought with it cooler temperatures.<\/p>\n

After arriving at the car-park and getting my gear sorted, I looked around searching for eye shine and found some staring back at me. It turned out to my surprise to be a Mixophyes fasciolatus<\/i> (Great Barred-frog) in the carpark! I found another smaller one several metres away. We were off to a good start! We entered one of the tracks and along the way we came across at least 10 others of this species. I was searching for the creek I\u2019d been to with Rowena a week ago, but on arrival it hadn\u2019t much water in this particular part, so we turned back. We encountered another 10 or more M. fasciolatus<\/i> on the way back to the carpark.<\/p>\n

\"Mixophyes
Mixophyes fasciolatus<\/i> (Great barred frog)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Mixophyes
Mixophyes fasciolatus<\/i> (Great barred frog) juvenile. A 50 cent-sized frog.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Mixophyes
Mixophyes fasciolatus<\/i> (Great barred frog)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I was still determined to find the same part of the creek I\u2019d been to a week ago, so we headed down the \u2018restricted vehicle access\u2019 track. As we\u2019re walking along, I hear some \u2018clicking\/eaking\u2019 call (hard to describe). I couldn\u2019t fit the call with a forest dwelling species, and began to think it sounded similar to the call of Rheobatrachus silus<\/i> (Southern Gastric brooding frog) (one of the frogs that hasn\u2019t been found in 30-odd years). I had to calm my-self! As we approached, I realised the habitat wasn\u2019t the stream that that species is found in. Connor and I tried triangulating (homing in on a frog). After about 20-odd minutes though, even though we were right above it, we still couldn\u2019t find it. Grrr. After comparing the calls with identified frog calls, I\u2019ve ID\u2019d them to Pseudophryne raveni<\/i> (Copper-backed broodfrog) (I haven\u2019t seen or heard these guys before).<\/p>\n

\"Mixophyes
Mixophyes fasciolatus<\/i> (Great barred frog). Just put this in here to break up the text.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We continued along the track which split off several times, and I couldn\u2019t quite remember where we\u2019d been last Thursday. Ahead, we could hear all this noise and I wanted to find the source. Being near mid-night, it couldn\u2019t have been much else but frogs calling. On arrival to the creek, there was a chorus of M. fasciolatus<\/i> (Great barred frogs) calling. It was pretty awesome to be amongst! (You can hear their calls and that of Pseudophryne raveni<\/i> on the Gallery page of my main site). However, what I was really after was a M. iteratus<\/i> (Giant barred frog). Amongst all the calls, I head this low, bass-like \u2018wok\u2019. Sweet! The call of M. iteratus<\/i>. After much searching with Connor\u2019s assistance, we found it under leaf-litter and past flood debris.<\/p>\n

\"Mixophyes
Mixophyes iteratus<\/i> (Giant barred frog)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Though it wasn\u2019t as big as others I\u2019d seen, I was happy nonetheless \ud83d\ude42 . On our way back to the car-park, I caught a glimpse of something jump though long grass. I think it was a Litoria wilcoxii<\/i> (Stony-creek frog), but it jumped away too quickly to be sure. We must have seen in total, 40+ Mixophyes fasciolatus<\/i> (Great barred frogs), we heard a Adelotus brevis<\/i> (Tusked frog), one Mixophyes iteratus<\/i> (Giant barred frog), a Litoria wilcoxii<\/i> (Stony-creek frog) and heard three Pseudophryne raveni<\/i> (Copper-backed broodfrogs). A very good night indeed!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the title obviously suggests (which is meant to be read rhythmically), we (including the whole of south-east Queensland) received[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/froggingaround.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/froggingaround.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/froggingaround.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/froggingaround.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/froggingaround.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/froggingaround.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":174,"href":"https:\/\/froggingaround.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions\/174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/froggingaround.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/froggingaround.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/froggingaround.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}