Snake: 1, Frog: 0

These photos (somewhat gory to some people's tastes) really speak for themselves. Suffice to say that I heard the screaming of the frog, located the pair and proceeded to photograph the whole process. The snake is a Keelback, Tropidonophis mairii, and the frog is a Cyclorana australis, the Giant Burrowing frog.

Random images...

Quiet Monday night here, thought I'd put some images up (I've been photographing some cool things up here, may as well share some shots).

That's the famous Litoria caerulea, the Green Treefrog. They're an animal of the forest around here, venturing out into flooded areas on forest margins to breed when it's really wet.

As the sun sets over Fogg Dam, a Pied Heron poses with its breeding-plumage-ponytails.

Well, they call them floodplains for a reason... you can see a couple of Jabiru on the edge of what used to be a road.

And here's a closer look at that Northern Territory icon, the Jabiru, or Black Necked Stork to some people (but it's not black at all!).

These guys are male Black Whip-snakes, fighting. It's a mating thing, I'm told; trying to tire the other guy out so he can't mate with a nearby female. Whip-snakes are frighteningly fast creatures.

More to come, eventually...

Update, two months on

Well it's been a while since I've typed into this little box and published it for the world to see. The lack of posts is due to my being pretty busy, the somewhat limited computing facilities, and the fact that, being in a place that's so biodiverse and full of life, I'm generally trying to get out and see things in my free time.

So, what's been going on up here? We got some real rain for a few days about two weeks ago, caused by the tropical low that then turned into cyclone George (which hit to the west of here). The sheer amount of water that fell absolutely saturated the area; the floodplains are absolutely, well, flooded. The Arnhem Highway is closed not far from here at the Adelaide River (despite being raised above the floodplains, the water was well over the road).

I have to go to bed, so I'll wrap up with a recent panorama of the famous (at least in some circles) Fogg Dam. The dam is on the left (the road runs over the three-metre-high dam wall), on the right are the floodplains. Oh, and that big green clump of vegetation on the road was a floating island of grass that tore off and drifted onto the wall... A heap of birds - egrets, herons, cormorants, spoonbills and the odd Jabiru (night herons at night) have been hanging around the where the water is coming over, making easy meals of the fish travelling between the dam and floodplains. And then there are the crocs...

Uncertain future...

I'm not sure what will happen to my blogging over the next few months.

On the 4th of January, I'll be leaving Sydney to work as a research assistant near Fogg Dam, south-east of Darwin. To me this is super-exciting, I'll be able to see so many great things as well as begin to immerse myself in the world of research.

I don't know what to expect in terms of computer and internet access when I'm there, though I'm sure I'll be taking heaps of blog-worthy photos and discovering new things. I'm considering starting a separate blog in order to share these things as well as record what I'm doing and how I'm going up there for whoever would be interested in that (friends and family mainly I suppose). Alternatively, I might just stick the odd piece up here and not bother with a new blog. Or I might not even be able or inclined to blog while I'm away, in that case you'll hear from me when I get back.

So... stay tuned. Not too sure what's going to happen, but if I do start something separate I shall announce it here.

'Tis the season for giving and receivin'

I was trying to chase down some specific info on this subject to accompany these shots that I took a few days ago, but haven't managed to find what I was after. So I'll post them with just a short explanation.

What you're seeing are the larvae - caterpillars - of the Imperial Blue butterfly, Jalmenus evagoras being fussed over by ants. The ants get a heap of nutritious substances which are exuded especially for them by the caterpillars (and, from memory, some drug-like substances that modify their behaviour), and in return these ants will quickly dispatch of anything that comes near their defenseless charges or even lands nearby on the plant (Acacia decurrens, the Sydney Green Wattle in this case, though A. longifolia is another favourite).

The attention given by the ants seems to reach a frenzied peak leading up to pupation, and the ants even protect pupae quite vigorously.