206) Not exactly happy to see me....

Southern Boobook

This great little owl grew less than enthused as I kept clicking away. It was his roosting time and he was deep in the Lamington jungle. Should have been quiet....

203) Spiders, frogs,and squishy things

Stony Creek Frog? (Litoria wilcoxii formerly lesueuri)*

Now that Dirk has a big birding lens, Nancy has decided we are missing all the little folk, the creepies, crawlies and things you don't want to find in your shoes. She has embarked on the macro-journey into the tiny, the small, the invisible....

This little 1/2-inch frog hopped onto our kitchen box in the dark while we were clearing things from dinner.  We didn't have our id book with us, but upon getting home and looking at the pics, we guessed it's a Green-thighed frog, based on it's eye stripe and that we heard 'quacking' in the dark which we thought was ducks.  GTFs are documented as 'quackers' too. However, we didn't capture the positive field id mark in the picture, which, as you may guess, is green thighs.  NOW we know what to look for.  Oh, and his lips don't look quite white enough. 
*We subsequently consulted our friend Luke, a postdoc in Nancy's lab who has done frog work in our area, and although he can't tell for sure from just our picture, he suggests our frog friend might be a Stony Creek Frog Litoria wilcoxii (formerly lesueuri) because "...the stripe is not broken in front of the eye (ruling out a bunch of other possibilities) and also extends over the tympanum (ear) to base of forearm (to behind level of arm in brevipalmata which is also typically reddish-brown above)."  There you have it!



In this case she handed me the camera and assured me she would tell me if it lunged as I stuck her camera in its face.

We're not positive on the ID, either it's a harmless trapdoor spider or...

a funnel-web spider which is rather well-known for being a bit of a nasty - symptoms include sweating, tingling, nausea, uncontrolled twitching, intracranial pressure  cerebral oedema and death in 15 minutes to 3 days.

This beastie came out from under our tent, regrettably a little worse for the wear--it looks like his head got a bit squished on the left side (right side in the picture), but he scuttled away after the photo session.  What do you think?  http://www.termites.com.au/spider-identification.html

No idea what this pretty bug is, poor invertebrates are quite understudied, but are so important to the workings of the world.

Because of the rain, the fungi are quite happy recently.  No id here, either...

Another unidentified bug crawling around in the dark during our fashionably late camp dinner.  The antennae length on this bug was quite remarkable.  We were were focusing on capturing the detail of his face and the arm hairs, and didn't get the entire antennae length in the frame.

In our Farmer's Market last week, we found Mangosteens, and as usual, we decided we must give them 'a go'.  Not only curiously pretty, it tastes deliciously like a big Lychee, as long as you only eat the white part--not the thick, woody outer shell nor the big pit that has been cut in half, here.