Royal National Park - Wildlife photos

[eddie the eagle]

Hi All,

Just a couple of photos worth sharing.

I was in the Royal National Park a couple of weekends ago, and came across the biggest yabby I've ever seen. Obviously I won't say where - just in case someone goes shopping for them.

As well, there was more than one - there's three yabbies and the eel in this photo. THe smallest yabby in this photo is a standard-sized one and it quickly lost the fight.

Cheers,

eddie

[WarrenH]

Eddie, good stuff. How big are these Blue Claws, could you tell?

I'm guessing that the Yabbie in the photo is about 5-6 years old. Yabbies will normally survive/live in good conditions of much territory and good shelter, up to 7 years. Some have been known to be 12 years. I have seen a report of a life span of Yabbies up to 20 years.

The Yabby in the shot is a beautiful looking Yabby, it has excellent colouring. I've seen Yabbies in streams in the Blue Mountains as red as cooked Lobsters. Truly extraordinary.

My Blue Claws that I keep at home, have the similar red marginata. On Tim Brennan's site 'Bushwalking NSW' at the bottom of the home page, in 'Cannyoning' Tim has a photo of an all red-orange Yabby taken in one of the Blue Mountains' Canyons, see 2002/2003 Du Faur Creek Canyon. This gives a good comparison to what you saw.

I like Yabbies, I keep Yabbies as a hobby. I name them all, like all family pets get named. They are my beloved pets ... until they are pan sized at about 200-260 grams.

I watch my Yabbies' diet closely. Being both omnivorous and serious cannibals, yet the literature most often calls them herbivorous, and they are herbivorous, that will eat out mega pond weed and any rotting vegetation pronto ... if you want to catch a Yabbie, use a bit of pear. For years I thought that the best baits were, raw meat, raw prawn, blood worms, fish meal, carrots or peas (the latter baits carefully sinkered down).

... but just recently I tried some over-ripe pear. Yabbies do prefer rotting vegetation. Giving them the pear created a take-no-prisoners battle in one of my tanks between all of the Yabbies, fighting all at once, for a one cubic cm bit of pear.

If you catch Yabbies on NSW Crown Lands, having a NSW recreational fishing licence is recommend. About $30 per year, and cheaper for several years. The bag limit is 200 per day or 200 saved. The legal traps are on the Fisheries' site. There is no legal size limit for Yabbies in NSW, which I think is totally wrong. If they aren't over 12cm length overall ... do toss them back.

[eddie the eagle]

Hi Warren,

THanks for the info - I wasn't aware of some of that, I always thought they were mainly meat-eaters. Makes sense otherwise when you think about it.

The twig underneath is about 3mm round. THe claws were about 1.5" to 2" long at a guess.

Yabby was 250mm to 300mm long

I've been in the bush for a while, and haven't seen them this size before.

Cheers,

eddie

[stepbystep]

Nice one Eddie, but I can't help recall a story from my childhood in WA.

Over there we called Yabbies Joolgies(no idea why) and my older brother had his secret spots where he would bring back 20 or 30(king prawn size) for a big family feast, but at the age of 10 I discovered a creek in thick scrub that held marron - these babies grew as big as a size crayfish! My sixteen year old brother would spend all day catching 30 Joolgies and I would disappear for an hour and bring back 3 or 4 seriously large marron - the poor bugger! I never told him where I got them, sadly now a housing estate has been built over the area and the creek is now a stormwater ditch!
Progress huh.....??

[DanH]

I like Yabbies, I keep Yabbies as a hobby. I name them all, like all family pets get named. They are my beloved pets ... until they are pan sized at about 200-260 grams.

I watch my Yabbies' diet closely. Being both omnivorous and serious cannibals, yet the literature most often calls them herbivorous, and they are herbivorous, that will eat out mega pond weed and any rotting vegetation pronto ... if you want to catch a Yabbie, use a bit of pear. For years I thought that the best baits were, raw meat, raw prawn, blood worms, fish meal, carrots or peas (the latter baits carefully sinkered down).

... but just recently I tried some over-ripe pear. Yabbies do prefer rotting vegetation. Giving them the pear created a take-no-prisoners battle in one of my tanks between all of the Yabbies, fighting all at once, for a one cubic cm bit of pear.

If you catch Yabbies on NSW Crown Lands, having a NSW recreational fishing licence is recommend. About $30 per year, and cheaper for several years. The bag limit is 200 per day or 200 saved. The legal traps are on the Fisheries' site. There is no legal size limit for Yabbies in NSW, which I think is totally wrong. If they aren't over 12cm length overall ... do toss them back.

brilliant info there Warren... We often see blue ones in Lamington

[iandsmith]

Wow, everything you wanted to know about yabbies but were afraid to ask! Fascinating.
Thanks for the info and pics. I, too, have seen the beautiful blue ones at Lamington. How could I forget. I was trying to shoot one when my expensive camera bag did a backflip off a rock (score 7 out of 10) and dunked my telephoto lens etc. Not happy.
Frightened one I was getting really close to so I only ended up with a second rate shot of another, as included.
Cheers all

[iandsmith]

Knew I had a couple of slightly better shots somewhere!