Wildlife Seen on Your Last Walk?

[sailfish]

Snakes are always fun eh sailfish. I'm glad our Tassie snakes are generally a bit more tolerant than that.
ff

Yep.
Fly fishing has got to be about the worst activity for snakes. All that stealthy creeping around, trying to not alert the fish with the vibrations of your footfalls around the waters edge where the growth is lush and small prey plentiful. Snake encounters are inevitable but that is the closest call I have had in 20 years of fly fishing. I don’t mind seeing them, it’s not seeing them that disturbs me. Like how this particular snake was in plain sight but did not register on my mind.


Regards,
Ken

[north-north-west]

Buenba Flat. Wombat capital of Victoria. Heaps of roos as well. Plus all the birds.

And the vermin: rabbits, deer, the weediest and ugliest brumbies on the planet . . .

[juju]

Was at Bundanoon a couple of weeks ago with a friend who was nervous about camping for all sorts of reasons (but she still wanted to). We came back to camp one night to find a black eight legged visitor knocking on her tent flap (it actually looked like it was - quite cute sitting up on its hind legs...). Found out next day the Funnel Web in that area is related to the Sydney Funnel Web and there are lots of them, we only saw the one. Has anyone had any 'dealings' with these? I grew up in Sydney - Red Backs were the go in my suburb and on the north coast we have Funnel Webs but not the deadly kind, and lots of what I think are trapdoors that look like them. Apparently the way to tell is whether there is a drop of venom on the pincer when they rear up, but don't want to get that close.

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Artist impression - not an actual photo

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[photohiker]

Has anyone had any 'dealings' with these? I grew up in Sydney - Red Backs were the go in my suburb and on the north coast we have Funnel Webs but not the deadly kind, and lots of what I think are trapdoors that look like them. Apparently the way to tell is whether there is a drop of venom on the pincer when they rear up, but don't want to get that close.

I would seriously doubt that drop of venom test. Mouse spiders all seem to be potentially dangerous critters, Funnel Web or not.

Wandering around the Adelaide hills this year I came across a red-headed spider in good numbers after rain. Curiosity got the better of me, and a web search revealed it as the Red Headed Mouse Spider

Though sluggish and rarely aggressive, they produce lots of a very toxic venom, which is potentially as dangerous as that of the Sydney Funnel-web Spider.

I'd give any mouse spider a wide berth.

[juju]

Have been asked what sort of birds are in my avatar, they are the rare 'Boot' birds of the Gibraltar Range.They clean the teeth of of the local rock monsters in the area.

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[Lizzy]

Have been asked what sort of birds are in my avatar, they are the rare 'Boot' birds of the Gibraltar Range.They clean the teeth of of the local rock monsters in the area.

they do look like owls!

[north-north-west]

Has anyone had any 'dealings' with these? I grew up in Sydney - Red Backs were the go in my suburb and on the north coast we have Funnel Webs but not the deadly kind, and lots of what I think are trapdoors that look like them. Apparently the way to tell is whether there is a drop of venom on the pincer when they rear up, but don't want to get that close.

I would seriously doubt that drop of venom test. Mouse spiders all seem to be potentially dangerous critters, Funnel Web or not.

Aren't all the mygalomorphs venomous?

[photohiker]

Aren't all the mygalomorphs venomous?

Yes but wikipedia doesn't think anything except the funnel web is 'really harmful':

They have ample venom glands that lie entirely within their chelicerae, but only spiders of the Australian genus Atrax can be really harmful to humans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mygalomorphae

So take care anyway. Half dead is still nasty

[Liamy77]

memories of "The princess bride".... he's only "mostly dead..."

[juju]

We had an incident up here (Bellingen) 15 years ago. A young boy of 8 was bitten on the head by a funnel web that had taken up residence in his bicycle helmet. He had no problems but had a trip to the hospital and I presume had the anti-venim.
Mygalomorphs can live up to 20 years! Apparently ducks will eat them...

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[Leggy]

Alas, no photos, but a few years ago on the OT, we met a group of guys who had camped on a tent platform the previous night, and had a devil chew up their socks. When they waved the sock remnants over the edge of the platform in the morning, the devil came out for another go.

[taswegian]

this little fella followed me home the other day.

He was also rather frisky and keen to get going.

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I can honestly say he died of natural causes with no human intervention.

[Genesis]

Great Pics all, What a fantastic reason for the continuing preservation of Tasmanian wilderness!!

[Son of a Beach]

When I got home from my walk this weekend, my kids asked me what animals I'd seen. Eventually, I realised I'd seen quite a few...

• Echidna
• Wedge Tail Eagle
• 3 Tiger Snakes
• ~10 Wallabies (bennetts and padymelons)
• Monster trout that swam right past my tent which was on the very edge of a lake (must have been at least 50cm long), plus a few large rises a bit further out later on (possibly all the same fish)
• Wombat (although it was trying to cross a busy highway on my way home, so I'm not sure if that counts)

Of course there were plenty of currawongs, rosellas, skinks, insects, and the other usual suspects too.

What animals did you see on your last walk?

[Phil]

2 tiger snakes on the Pine Valley Track
Quite a few wallabies
Echidna
I don't know my birds but there were some really lovely looking ones along the Lake St Clair track

Funnily enough I didn't see any animals during the 'Triple Top Mountain Run' yesterday; I think the 200 entrants scared them all away from the track

[JohnM]

A Wallaby.

A worm about 30cm long and as thick as your thumb.

Another worm, about 20cm long and as thick as your little finger.

A bunch of colourful birds.

A decent-sized brown hairy spider. Probably a huntsman.

Massive grasshopper things.

A kookaburra.

[ofuros]

Creatures featured on yesterday's walk...........Cascade + Ridge trail circuit, Main Range ,Goomburra,Qld.

Not happy Jan....


Unknown snake species....now I.D.'d Marsh Snake Hemiaspis signata, Venomous.


One more step....onto.... a snoozing Red Bellied Black wrongly I.D'd its a Small-Eyed snake Cryptophis nigrescens, Venomous.



omnipresent leeches




Tick....tick...tick


....and lastly..... the ahhh factor


All in all, a great little walk.

Ofuros

Last edited by ofuros on Wed 28 Dec, 2011 11:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

[flatfoot]

A couple of Paddy Melons on the Cape Raoul track (near the base of Mt Raoul). This was on Friday.

Out at the cape we encountered a black snake crossing the track in the area past the lake. It surprised me and I pulled up about 1.5m from it. I'm glad I was wearing gaitors and happy it moved on. I was with my 12 year old nephew and a few others in my family were about 50m behind us. They were very reluctant to continue

It's the first live snake I've encountered in about 40 bushwalks. It must have had an effect. I had a nightmare about a red belly black snake early that night

[nakedape]

I'll try to dig out some pics soon but:

65 different bird species (not going to list them all)
Goanna (numerous individuals, 2 species)
Bearded dragons (4-5 species)
Thorny devil (really a bearded dragon but worth a separate mention)
3m mulga snake
Peninsula brown snake
Death Adder (nearly stepped on this bloke - would have been my last step too)
Macropods of all descriptions
Spiders & insects too numerous to list
Cats, foxes, bunnies & goats

[bailz66]

A recent trip to the high planes at Falls Creek. Not the best camera work as was just an old Cannon digital camera but was pretty nice getting up so close to them

[jcr_au]

This fella/sheila was having a frolic off the coast in the Mimosa Rocks NP between Bermagui & Tathra mid October


whale 3a by boo 53, on Flickr

and a couple of days later this one, well over 2m, in the Sandpatch wilderness west of Mallacoota

[mikethepike]

All those bush creature encounters in Tassie. I've also had plenty of there. A favorite was a sweet little bush rat entering my tent for food in the w Arhurs. I think it lived under the platform. Sorry I know you're not supposed to feed them but with cold weather coming and it needing to get fatter for winter, I couldn't help put out a couples of sultanas to serve this end and so I could watch it. It will be a different story if foxes ever get loose there.

Similarly, frequent wildlife encounters elsewhere in Aust. are to be had on Kangaroo Island. Again no foxes.

[Genesis]

Last Sunday on a walk up St Valentines Peak, We had a yound echidna cross our path, A little to fast for us to get a shot.

Genesis

[north-north-west]

Two Black-backed Gulls, three Black Swans, about 20 Egrets, one very cheesed-off young Grebe and at least half a dozen different species of Cormorant.

In other words, it wasn't a walk but the first try-out of the kayak. I love having new toys.

[ULWalkingPhil]

Just tonight, returned from a long night time hike and I saw many nesting sea turtles.

[north-north-west]

Apart from the usual birdlife (and the unusual, like a lyrebird 50ft up a tree), dragons and skinks (including one tiny little beast that wandered into the tent vestibule and tried to hide under my boot when I moved the pack), three adult tiger snakes, one juvenile, one whitelip and one *&%$#! big beastie that looked a hell of a lot like a King Brown. Very snakey summer this has been.

[Lindsay]

A couple of lace monitors and a red bellied black snake on the Gibberagong track near Hornsby last Monday. The snake was quite comfortable and did not want to move as I went past.

[dplanet]

No one mentioned tasmania devil. Lucky me! A baby one was spotted near Interview River on my recent West Coast walk. Sorry there is no pic because s/he was too shy.

[photohiker]

About 80 Southern Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos on my early morning walk yesterday.

Like this one (from wikipedia)

[dplanet]

Unlike the shy baby tasmania devil, these fellows (photo attached) allowed me to come so close to them. Perhaps, their thoughts were that I was one among them. I was with no boots no walking pole enjoying a stroll on my return to a campground.

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