Fire!

Just thought this one taken tonight by the side of the road was apt, following the previous post on Macrozamias resprouting.

Assorted

A biting fly was annoying me as I walked along a fenceline a couple of weeks ago. I paused to photograph this Nephila and the fly blundered into the web! Bonus! You can see that the spider was actually already eating something.

A Rainbow Bee Eater. I've never seen them down in Sydney and have really fallen in love with their colours, voices, flight and tail-feathers (hidden in this shot).

Macrozamias - Fire - Regrowth

It seems like fire is a huge ecological force everywhere in Australia, and the Top End is no exception. You can imagine how the massive amounts of vegetation generated in the wet season can lead to huge fuel loads and intense fires. The question up here is the same as it is in Sydney where I'm from - how often should areas be burnt to maintain biodiversity? I don't know enough about this topic to discuss it intelligently, but it's definitely something that it's not easy to forget as smoke fills the air on a daily basis and roadside fires are a common sight.

One such roadside fire was burning a few weeks ago, and the flora has shown its ability to regenerate with great enthusiasm. The plants that really catch my eye are the cycads - Macrozamias. So without further ado, here is a series of photos illustrating the regrowth of these plants.

New camera - new photos!

New toy arrived today, and after the infuriating initial battery charge, I managed to get out in the last few minutes of sunlight to have a quick play. Nothing special. But I'm a very happy chappy!






The new camera is the Pentax K10D by the way. First impression is that I'll have a lot of fun with it!

Bizzare File Snakes and the Runoff

We all know about the seasons in the wet-dry tropics, right? There's the Wet, and there's the Dry. True, but there's also Buildup (aka suicide season - I've not experienced it but it's apparently hot, humid, yet infuriatingly it doesn't rain), and when the rain has finished, Runoff. It's called that for an obvious reason - there's so much water around from the amount of rain that has fallen, and it's all got to go somewhere... creeks, rivers, dams etcetera all continue to flow for quite some time following the last of the rains.

As the water recedes, many aquatic organisms risk becoming trapped, and desperately try to travel upstream to permanent water. At a nearby creek, just such an event has been occurring recently. In addition to the millions of fish, shrimp and crayfish, the most exciting inhabitants of the waterway are the entirely aquatic file snakes occurring there in amazing numbers, trying to cross the culvert under the road where the water flows swiftly.

File snakes are a very small family - the Acrochordidae, comprising three species. The species around here is Acrochordus arafurae, the Arafura file snake. The family gets its name from the characteristic rasp like skin - though to aid in capturing the slippery fish that these snakes prey upon. From this skin, which is loose and baggy, to its bull-dog face; its thin bifurcated tongue to the way it can hardly move out of the water (the classic analogy compares this snake with a wet sock) - this is a snake that is simply unlike any other I've ever come across.


They're almost completely harmless. Non-venomous and they don't bite. I say almost, though. Apparently, these snakes may eat catfish, and the venomous spines of the latter may pierce the snake's skin and pose a danger when handling them! I've heard that they adopt a 'fishing pose' - the tail is anchored in some tree or pandanus roots while the body and head lolls in the current, hoping to detect a fish as it brushes by seeking shelter. The low metabolism of the species means it doesn't need to surface very frequently to breathe.

Trivia: they're supposedly quite a tasty dish in indigenous culture!