Nature's Place

 
The last of the day’s sunshine coloured the red flower a rich yellow. Sunlight bursts into a deep yellow just before night falls from the ocean east. You can almost taste it at times.

It looks like culling the cane toads has paid off. When I got here over a year ago there were just three green tree frogs in the drainpipes. Now they are many and in various nooks and cranny’s about the place.
 
This morning I had a job to do with the truck so I checked the usual spot for the green frogs, under the door above the front wheel, but there was nothing there. Often there is and I put them in a place I have made for frogs I have to move during the day.

When I got home after travelling about 100 kilometres I wasn’t surprised to see three green frogs emerge from a vent hole on the drivers side wheel hub looking a bit battered. They would have been subject to enormous G forces, not unlike the centrifuge pilots train in.

They were blackened and disoriented so I brought them to the old water tank for cleaning and refreshing. When I lowered one to the water he started jumping backward as if up was down and down was up. After spinning in the wheel as they did I’d be surprised if they survive.

I checked around the tank last night and I found one of the travellers. He was exhausted, barely enough energy to climb the last few inches of the climb I found him on. So I gave him a hand up. May see him again.
 
Not only are the common tree frog abundant now but different species have been showing up at irregular intervals. The latest is the Dainty Green Tree frog.

The ones pictured are just over an inch long, each a different individual found at separate places over the same night, and I haven’t seen them since.

Other species showing up recently are the Peron’s Tree Frog and another with a dark green skin and a dark red eye; I don’t know its name. I might post it here soon.

Frogs have been showing up in waves and I suspect they are coming out of the Billinudgel NR as they mature and need to push on to new grounds for the winter. It’s half a kilometre to the nearest entrance – quite a distance for these small creatures to travel.

Waves, everything comes in waves.
 
It is delightful to have these visitors appear in my back garden, on the Passion fruit vine and the rescued stag fern. Finding homes among the bricks and stone and in the shed.

A simple pleasure to me.
 
Copyright Reserved / Mark Berkery