Bushwalk Australia

Another Brown Snake encounter today. Was only a little bugger but that means they have been breeding. No photo as I wasn't going over to the bush it slid under to get a shot. This was Brown Snake encounter number 5 since the start of summer.

Could anyone identify this bug?




That thing wouldn't stay still! Difficult to photograph.

gbagua wrote:Could anyone identify this bug?
That thing wouldn't stay still! Difficult to photograph.

Never seen one myself but looks like it might be a Mountain Katydid, aka Mountain Grasshopper (Acripeza reticulata).
Apparently the colour show is a defensive display.
https://www.brisbaneinsects.com/brisbane_crickets/MountainKatydid.htm

Yep, mountain katydid. Fairly common in the high country this time of year.

Thank you guys. Mountain grasshopper vulgarly known then. Happy with that.

I had an amazing platypus encounter a couple of days ago, such funny creatures
https://youtu.be/Vs4KR_f5-k8

FLICKIT wrote:I had an amazing platypus encounter a couple of days ago, such funny creatures

Nice one, Flickit.

Not exactly on a walk, and not the greatest pic, but…. Resident owls at Riverside Caravan Park, Horsham.

Look like tawny frogmouths. They're closer to nightjars than owls. Such wonderful birds.

Yes, tawnies they are. So wonderful to be able to observe them - they were there all day every day,

Found a little Wood Scorpion Cercophonius squama in the toilets at Island Bend in the Kosciuszko NP the other day. I had no idea they were around the high country

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_yellow_robin

At a first glance it looks like an Eastern Yellow Robin but the dark band running from the eyes to the beak doesn't seem right? Maybe a different type.

Any idea?

Location: near Mt. Nebo, SE QLD

Could be pale-yellow robin Tregellasia capita

There is a population in coastal zones from SE Qld to Mid North NSW. I've only ever seen them once, in the Binna Burra area.

Good find. I think that's the one. Thanks!

Listed here:

http://www.bushpea.com/bd/pg/all/p/pale ... %2003.html

Another Brown Snake encounter today. This is encounter number 6 since the start of last summer. It was right next to the footpad I was walking on. I sidled around to get a better shot and as I was getting my phone out it took off under a rock.

Incredible to see a picture of a platipus like that!
Great thread. First time post for me!

Starting to see a lot more dingoes around the south coast forests. Ran into one two days ago on a fire trail.

No photo I am afraid, but today (30/May) we saw two Spur Wing Plovers running around on a grassy area with three babies!
Babies in spring time or even summer time, sure, but at the start of winter?
They could not have been more than a few days old.
Oh well, the babies looked energetic and healthy. The parents were twittering as usual.

Cheers
Roger

A family (wild) with 2 young lorikeets at home.

Climate change?

Climate change maybe, or more specifically a LOT of food available?

Cheers
Roger

We had 3 Noisy Miner chicks sitting in a tree in our yard for a couple of days a few weeks back. The family were kept very busy feeding them. It was great to watch. I'd go with the abundance of food as a reason some birds have bred late in the season.

On top of Tibrogargan (Glass House Mountains, QLD), I heard the sound of a woman squealing. I looked around thinking it must be a female hiker being silly, but no, not a single human around. Then I saw this bird on top of a tree moving fast jumping from branch to branch and making that weird squealing. I thought only lyrebirds were capable of emitting such strange sounds.

It had a uniform greyish colour similar to that of a “Spotted Turtle-Dove,” but it wasn’t this bird though.

Does anyone know which bird species was that one?


*Note: Noise probably made to deter strangers from going too close to its nest?

gbagua wrote:On top of Tibrogargan (Glass House Mountains, QLD), I heard the sound of a woman squealing. I looked around thinking it must be a female hiker being silly, but no, not a single human around. Then I saw this bird on top of a tree moving fast jumping from branch to branch and making that weird squealing. I thought only lyrebirds were capable of emitting such strange sounds.

It had a uniform greyish colour similar to that of a “Spotted Turtle-Dove,” but it wasn’t this bird though.

Does anyone know which bird species was that one?


*Note: Noise probably made to deter strangers from going too close to its nest?

Difficult without a photo. If it was a dove-like bird I'd guess it could be a Wonga pigeon, but I wouldn't think you'd see one on an exposed high place like Tibrogargan.
I took the photo below on Bare Rock past Mt Cordeaux during a trip we did many years ago. I still don't have a 100% positive ID but thinking is it may be a Grey Shrike-thrush.
Does yours look like this?

https://birdlife.org.au/bird-profile/grey-shrike-thrush
"the species has hundreds, if not thousands, of different songs"

Possibly a Catbird ? They come in grey, green, spotted & few other variations.
They scare the bejesus out of you if they are within earshot.

ofuros wrote:Possibly a Catbird ? They come in grey, green, spotted & few other variations.
They scare the bejesus out of you if they are within earshot.

Could be. Only seems to be Green/Spotted Catbird species for Oz (healthy population in QLD, vulnerable in NSW, not present elsewhere).
Note that there can be a variation in colour where the upper body is a more olive-green.
https://birdlife.org.au/bird-profile/green-catbird
"gets its name from the cat-like wailing call that it gives at any time of day throughout the year"

The sound immediately made me think Catbird, but the colouring makes it questionable.

Not actually walking - just on other side of fence late one night.

Canary Worm, ~ 10 cm long. Grampians.

Not a catbird. It looked more like a “peaceful dove” and very much like the “Grey Shrikethrush” mentioned by johnw, but after listening to this bird’s sound recording in YT, it was definitively not the one

The colour was uniform throughout without any bands in the neck area and no dark colour in the wings like the GS.

A lot of juvenile birds have muted colouring compared to adult plumage, but that call still doesn't really tally with anything I can think of. Maybe check the cuckoos or cuckoo-shrikes or woodswallows?