Mt tamborine wildlife

A couple of shots taken recently in our garden at Mt Tamborine. I contacted the Queensland Museum about this yellow spider, it's the first time I've seen one and I couldn't find a reference in any of our books. Apparently it's called a flower spider and they can also be white. Larraine with her keen eye spotted the Kookaburra having snake for lunch. It sat there for about 20 mins occasionally bashing the snake against the tree branch.

More frog actiity.

Thankfully Brisbane has had the traditional wet Summer that we so desperately needed. As a consequence there has been no shortage of frog activity. These shots were taken late Summer (mid February) Normally we wouldn't see a Striped Marsh Frog so exposed as this one, whats more it stayed there for quite a while. Marsh Frogs are prolific breeders and they call just about every night and the sound varies in intensity between a tennis match ( the "toc" "toc" sounds like a tennis ball being hit) and Chinese New year (firecrackers) It's a coincidence that the bowl at the side has the same markings as the frog. I thought I'd mention that in case anyone thought the frog had camouflage capabilities. The two little Sedgefrogs finally became an item. A little late in the season perhaps, we couldn't find any eggs in any of the ponds the next day. Maybe having a practice for next year. We are into Autumn now and the weather is starting to cool so our little friends will be looking for or will have found homes to hibernate no doubt.

The deluge arrived.

Well finally this week South East Queensland has had a bucketing of rain. The dams are starting to fill up and there is talk of possible easing of level 6 water restrictions. Some suburbs in Brisbane received a 100 mm. in an hour. When a deluge like this happens it always causes flash
flooding, and sadly a young man was drowned in the Brisbane suburb of Capalaba. Our thoughts and prayers go out to this family at what must be such a difficult time.
The frogs pictured are residents of our garden, the common name is the Graceful treefrog or Dainty Green treefrog ( Litoria gracilenta) We very rarely see them until heavy rain arrives and then they are everywhere and they call all night long. As you can see, you can get quite close with the camera and they don't move. All of our five species of frogs have been active this summer now, and its good to see them in good numbers.

Mt tamborine resident

We spotted this little frog outside the Mt Tamborine post office in the main street. It was perched on a tiled pillar about 60 cm. high. No doubt thoroughly enjoying our welcome run of wet weather. This is what we love about Mt Tamborine its surrounded by so many National Parks you are never very far from nature.

Christmas Colour.

This is one of the grafted Eucalypts that we have planted in our garden. It gives a nice splash of seasonal colour with the red and green. This is the first good flush of flowers we've had on this tree, last year the possums nibbled the new buds. One of the parents is E. ficifolia a red flowering Western Australian species and it's grafted on to rootstock of E. phytocarpa which has the common name " Swamp bloodwood" this is able to tolerate our more wet and humid summers. They are not cheap to buy, but certainly worth it for the beautiful colour they bring to the garden, plus they attract the native birds. For any fellow bloggers dropping by we wish you a joyful Christmas and happiness and health for the coming year. God Bless.

Neighbours become good friends

Sometimes as you browse through the garden at night you come across special little happenings that send you scurrying for your camera. I didn't know until tonight that they were sharing acommodation. So we were pleasantly surprised to be greeted with this sight.

Neighbours

There is something nice about two different species of frog being neighbours in adjacent pots. I was fortunate to be able to take a snap of them as they popped their heads out the other night. The first shot has a Green tree frog in the lower pot and an Emerald Spotted tree frog in the one above. The second shot is two Green tree frogs, I'm not sure if they are an item and live in the same pot or not. It's quite fascinating to watch the little Eastern Sedge frogs making their calls, they are in full chorus tonight after a storm today. I once again apologise for being irregular with my posts. We have been regular visitors to Tamborine Mountain ( an hours drive south of Brisbane) for a number of years now. We've always loved the place and we've finally bought a little place to share with the family and friends. As you can imagine it's kept us pretty busy over the last few months. I will post some shots of Tamborine soon.

How cute is this?

Well..... we had the most unusual visitor come into our little gift shop last week. This dear possum came through the front door in the middle of the day and took up residence in the display shelving ( after dislodging what was there of course) There has been a bit of road works in the area recently so he was possibly a bit disturbed. Our main concern was to remove it safely, because should he run amok there was plenty of breakable giftware around. After finding out how expensive it is to get a possum removed we decided to do it ourselves. We taped a box to front of the space hoping it would move in. It was a very obliging possum and within a couple of minutes we were able to slide a piece of cardboard over the top and put him in the garden. Maybe he wanted someone to buy him. Just as well Larraine found him first, people might have thought it was a stuffed toy. I think you would get quite a shock.
Our Green Treefrogs are starting to get very active, the storm season is underway and there is quite a cacophony of frog sounds at the moment.