Wildlife Seen on Your Last Walk?

[Baeng72]

This beauty appeared to jump onto the track in front of me on the way down from the Bogong High Plains to Weston's hut last Saturday.
Any idea what species it is? I'm impressed with the fortitude of the arthropods of the High-Country. Grasshoppers, wasps, spiders all along the areas that had a lot of snow.

Spider (BHP)

[north-north-west]

Looks like a wolf spider. They are a bit on the jumpy side.

[Baeng72]

Looks like a wolf spider. They are a bit on the jumpy side.

Yep, thanks!
https://australian.museum/learn/animals ... f-spiders/

[michael_p]

Check out the distance from the front legs to the back legs. This one is a monster.

[rcaffin]

OK, can't resist.
I bought an inexpensive Infra-red trail camera recently. This is our garden.
Now we know (only partly) why the ground cover looks a bit stompled sometimes.

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04:27 am

Cheers
Roger

[michael_p]

Spotted some Cicada shells today.

[Neo]

Frog on a leaf.
Also black swans with three large offspring, ducks, one sleepy kangaroo, a nervous lace monitor and some nice birds.

[ribuck]

This lizard bit me at the top of Taros Ladders. I was having lunch and it approached me. I thought it was interested in my water bottle, but when I was distracted it bit hard on my little toe (I was wearing sandals). I instinctively kicked it away and it sailed through the air about five metres. It came back and hung around for a while, but it didn't get as close as before.

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This very cute lizardish thing was near Diagonal Gorge in the Chewings Range. That's not my hand in the photo - when I'm walking in this area my hands are always full of spinifex splinters.

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The remaining photos are near Mt Giles. This lizard is very well camouflaged. If I hadn't stopped to check my map, I wouldn't have seen it.

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Camel footprints are BIG. There's a human shoeprint in this photo for comparison.

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As I was walking, a bird flew away noisily from just in front of my feet. I looked down and saw its ground nest with two eggs. It's amazing that the perenties and dingoes don't eat these eggs.

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[Moondog55]

Does a walk from the kitchen to the carport count?
Sitting around the chiminea last night and a brushtail possum walked serenely along the top of the fence from the front yard to the back yard taking absolutely no notice of the six of us sitting there and eating home cooked pizza, now I know this pest has been living here for a while but it's the first time I've seen it. Nice and fat and with a lovely dense coat on it.

[grunter]

3 (micro?) bats in two old gold mines at Camp Mountain Samford. I've got it on video but impossible to photo. Didn't want to hang around too long in there. I didn't find any gold unfortunately. Either did the miners back in 1940/50's.

[Eremophila]

Castle Cove, GOW. Haven’t ID’ed it yet.

[rcaffin]

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Not sure what it is - antechinus or bandicoot I think, sitting on a stump at the back fence on our farm in the middle of the night.
Trail camera with deep infra-red flash and motion sensor. The eyes shine or reflect very brightly in the IR.
What we don't know about night time activities here! Yes, we have more.

Cheers
Roger

[michael_p]

Managed to sneak up on this female Gang Gang. Took me about five minutes to get this close.

[rcaffin]

I have mentioned that we live on a farm. It has a large dam. On the S edge of the dam there is a smooth rock sticking up. So I set up my trail cam (with movement detection) to monitor it.

This is early in the morning, looking at the nice rock. Later in the morning:

A small skink has turned up to sit in the sun. Of course, if it suits a small skink, maybe it might suit something bigger:

A water dragon. Actually, I think I know this guy. I was clearing weeds out of the dam, and the weeds had insects. This water dragon sat there collecting the insects. I had to nudge him aside with a spade so I could clear the heap! Absolutely zero fear.
However, he seemed to sense the camera, and came to look at it.

More tomorrow - and there IS more to come.
Cheers
Roger

[rcaffin]

So, the dam. If the rock suits skinks and water dragons, who else?

Well, a long-necked tortoise. But you can't have just one tortoise.

Obviously, there has to be at least two of them. Only two?

The skink on the bank seems to unaffected.

Is there more to come? Of course: stay tuned!
Cheers
Roger

[GregG]

Is there more to come? Of course: stay tuned!
Cheers
Roger

.... Hell no, not wood ducks?

[rcaffin]

What do you have against wood ducks?
We do have a lot of them, that is true, and they have cute fluffy babies, but they are not on this path.

Cheers
Roger

[GregG]

I encountered this Eastern Bearded Dragon in my front yard this morning, trying to look intimidating and telling me to kindly remove myself, which I did after grabbing a few friendly snaps

[rcaffin]

Two is company, but three is a crowd - they say.

But this is becoming ridiculous! Four of them!
Then you get inter-species territorial disputes:

"Go away: there's two of us and only one of you.
Big ignore..."

But soft - something lurks.
Tomorrow.
Cheers
Roger

[rcaffin]

Yeah, something lurks.

However ... I can't see a red-bellied black snake being a threat to a tortoise. The tortoise does not seem concerned.

Cheers
Roger

[north-north-west]

Shiny blue beetles!
OK, there were also wombats, wobblies, wedgies, pademelons, flame robins, fantails, scrub-wrens, currawongs and snow skinks ... but ... shiny little blue beetles!

[ribuck]

That is a lot of beetles!

As a child, I wondered why there are special words for shiny yellow ("gold"), shiny brown ("bronze") and for shiny grey ("silver"), but not for other shiny colours. Now I know it's because shiny metals are considered more name-worthy than shiny beetles.

[north-north-west]

It was weird. There were maybe twenty of these clumps in a small spot - within a five metre radius - and nowhere else in all the area I covered. Given the time of year, I'm guessing it's mating behaviour. There was nothing else particular there to attract them.
But such a lovely iridescent colour, they stood out even in the grey conditions.

[peregrinator]

That is a lot of beetles!

As a child, I wondered why there are special words for shiny yellow ("gold"), shiny brown ("bronze") and for shiny grey ("silver"), but not for other shiny colours. Now I know it's because shiny metals are considered more name-worthy than shiny beetles.

Shiny blue: "Electric ultramarine".

[rcaffin]

I moved the camera.
Some time ago a big wattle tree on the bank of our dam died and fell over, into the dam. I removed most of it with a chain saw while standing in the water - in mid-summer of course. I could not get the stump out without possibly damaging the wall around the dam, so we left it there as a tourist attraction.
The tortoises apparently like it. The (coppertail?) skink was amused at how they climbed up onto the stump. (lower left)

In fact, the whole peanut gallery turned up. (The apparent change in colour between photos is due to the presence or absence of the IR filter. I have no control over that.)

The water dragon decided to also play tourist.

A very fine fellow.

He may be catching something here (open mouth).

Cheers
Roger

[michael_p]

Glad I was looking where I was walking.

[rcaffin]

Enough of tortoises. And water dragons.

A willy wagtial sunning itself.

Then a baby Wood Duck (yes, we had to have some Wood Ducks, there's a lot of them).

Then a Moorhen swimming around.

Cheers
Roger

[puredingo]

This could also be in the Flora category i suppose?

But I've never seen a hanging bee's nest before, not that I'm any kind of expert. Are these usual?

[rcaffin]

I think that is a swarm, not a nest. The nest is usually under a ledge or similar. This lot may be looking to find a new nest place.

Cheers
Roger

[michael_p]

Those bees are swarming. Normal thing for them to do. In the middle of the swarm will be a queen. Basically what they are doing is moving to a new home. Also, not normally aggressive whilst swarming but when they find a new home that all changes.