Skip to main content

Top Ten Wildlife Encounters of 2019

I’ve had such a good year exploring for wildlife! I really pushed myself into new territory, both figuratively as far as my nocturnal and underwater adventures went, and literally as I travelled to the USA. For this list of my favourite encounters, I have only included species that I’ve come across here in South-east Queensland, though rest assured that my time spent amongst black bears, alligators and hummingbirds made a huge impression on me!


1. Giant panda snail (Hedleyella falconeri), Tamborine Mountain 
I went searching for snails in the rainforest one night earlier this year, and my jaw was left hanging open when I saw my first apple-sized panda snail gliding along a log. Who knew snails could be majestic?! These are the largest snails in Australia, and they are unique to the rainforests of South-east Queensland and Northern New South Wales.


2. Imperial hairstreak (Jalmenus evagoras), Alderley
Many butterflies in the Lycaenidae family have a strange lifecycle that involves ants providing a security service to the caterpillars. To read about this is one thing, but to see it with my own eyes gave me such a thrill back in April! In fact, I basically got to see the whole lifecycle of this species play out before my very eyes, from spiky egg stage, through to the adult, all on one wattle sapling at Banks Street Reserve.


3. Southern leaf-tailed gecko (Saltuarius swainii), Tamborine Mountain
This species is also known as the Border Ranges leaf-tailed gecko, and as such, it is an icon of our local rainforests and an oft-photographed creature. When I saw one for the first time, however, it didn't seem familiar at all, just truly wonderful and exotic! It is larger than any other native or introduced gecko that I’ve seen, and its dimensions, camouflage and overall charisma are truly captivating!


4. Starry moray (Echidna nebulosa), Alexandra Headland
Let me set the scene for you: it’s my first snorkelling adventure in a long time, and I’m by myself on a mostly-deserted beach at the base of Alexandra Headland on a weekday. The tide is coming in and it is early morning, so the water is a little turbulent and grey, when I suddenly spy my first ever moray eel moving from boulder to boulder! This brief glimpse was enough to kick-start me into a fantastic day of underwater adventure, and I later caught up with a much more photogenic individual of that same species at Caloundra.


5. Goliath stick-insect (Eurycnema goliath), Loganlea
They say stick-insects are the masters of camouflage in the insect world, but I saw this behemoth from a good six or seven metres away in November! If you look at the last appendage on this lady, you can see the boat-shaped protuberance that her eggs roll out onto before she flicks them to the ground.


6. Eastern small-eyed snake (Cryptophis nigrescens), Mount Coot-tha
I have no fear towards snakes and find them fascinating and beautiful, so it always frustrates me that I hardly ever see them. My luck turned around one weekend this spring, however, as not only did I see a delicate little small-eyed snake at Mount Coot-tha, I also saw my first red-bellied black-snake on a trail out near Lake Manchester—a true showstopper!


7. Highfin moray (Gymnothorax pseudothyrsoideus), Buddina
Two morays in the one list—but how could I not? This highfin was seen the same day as the starry moray, and helped me realise just what a diverse underwater paradise we are blessed with on our South-east Queensland coastlines.


8. Golden-crowned snake (Cacophis squamulosus), Tamborine Mountain
Another beauty from my night at Tamborine Mountain, this golden-crowned snake illustrates just how pretty snakes can be. I had been looking at my very first giant panda snail, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw a movement on a tree buttress, and there this lovely creature was!


9. Digger wasp (Prionyx globosus), Boondall
I’m always amused when an insect has the type of extroverted personality we tend to associate with larger vertebrates, and that was certainly the case with this fearless, industrious and hot-tempered wasp I found at the Boondall Wetlands in February.


10. Red swampdragon (Agrionoptera insignis), Mansfield
This beautiful dragonfly was a new species for me, and I loved how vigorously he was guarding his little puddle in the forest.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

North Queensland Trip, Part 1.

Eungella National Park Eungella National Park location; Image courtesy of Google Maps. My home state of Queensland is a huge place. Bigger than any of the United States, it is considered the sixth largest sub-national entity in the world, behind such remote provinces as Nunavut in Canada, and the Danish territory of Greenland. Though I've lived in and travelled through Europe and Canada, much of my birthplace remains a mystery to me. To rectify this situation, I planned a road-tripping holiday this year with my sister and her partner, in the Northern section of the state. My first visit to anywhere in the Tropics, I have since returned home with some of the most amazing wildlife experiences possible!

Wild Plants of Ipswich

I've never really taken much notice of plants until recently, regarding them usually as just the thing that a bird perches on while you're watching it. This week I decided it was time to change that attitude by trying my hand at plant identification in Denmark Hill Conservation Park, located in the centre of Ipswich. The park is just 11.5 hectares in size, but preserves a patch of bushland that acts as an 'island refuge' in a sea of suburbia. I did my best to focus on the trees and not be too distracted by birds or the resident Koala   (Phascolarctos cinereus)  population, and came up with nine interesting trees and plants seen on the Water Tower Circuit.

Wild Queensland: Photos and stories from my roadtrip north

Earlier this month, I drove up to Airlie Beach in the Whitsunday Region to celebrate the 40th birthday of my close friend, Kat. Photo by Luke Martin. Our time there overlapped for one weekend, in which we enjoyed swims, drinks, hearty dinners and a sailing adventure around the islands. The celebrations and wonderful catch-ups flew by quickly, but when Kat and her husband Luke flew back down south on Sunday, I still had a week's worth of time at my disposal to explore the nature of Queensland's coast. I started with a journey into the forests of Conway National Park, just a ten minute drive east of Airlie Beach. I spent a sunny, humid morning walking up to the peak of Mount Rooper, through vine scrub and eucalypt forest. It was exhilarating!  I immediately saw a new species of bird for me in the carpark there, a female olive-backed sunbird (Cinnyris jugularis). After so much rain earlier in the week, the forest floor was also teeming with amazing fungi! After lunch back in town,