Wild Queensland -- Nov 2011

[moloch]

The little town of Windorah is surrounded by red dunes.





This dry country is not ideal for butterflies. I did see many of these tiny Two-spotted Line-Blues (Nacaduba biocellata).


There also were a few Chequered Swallowtails (Papilio demoleus) in the area.



The red sand was good for reptiles. These long-tailed Canegrass Dragons (Diporiphora winneckei) were common in shrubs along a fence line. The one in the first photo below held its tail in a very odd manner.




Female Central Military Dragon (Ctenophorus isolepis). This species was also numerous on the dunes.

[moloch]

One of the most interesting observations was of this Gould's Monitor (Varanus gouldii) that was raiding a snake nest. We saw the monitor digging and it allowed us to slowly approach and photograph it. It continued with the digging, would temporarily disappear from sight but would then emerge with an egg. It swallowed these whole and then repeated the process a number of times. I would imagine that this was a nest of one of the large elapids such as a Western Brown Snake (Pseudonaja nuchalis) or a King Brown Snake (Pseudechis australis) that are common in the area.








... closeup of the hole that it dug to get to the eggs.



We also saw Yellow-spotted Monitors (Varanus panoptes) sometimes walking along the streets in the town. This one had been standing beneath a sprinkler on a hot day.

[moloch]

Windorah has not had rain since last March and it was quite dry near town. This Yellow-spotted Monitor looked skinny and in poor condition.



Night drives produced this Jewelled Gecko (Strophurus elderi). This species is a spinifex specialist and is hard to find. I rarely see field photographs of it. It is agile and climbs with ease through the stems of the grass.




This is an appropriately named Rainbow Bee-Eater.




Although dry, there were a few plants in flower.

[moloch]

This was a really odd coloured pea:





We headed about 100km west of Windorah into the Eyrean Basin. I hoped to be lucky and be able to show my friends a Fierce Snake but it was too hot when we reached the area. The snakes live in the cracks of clay and do not need to bask much during the hot summer. I think that they would be more easily sighted during the winter months.

The basin is dry country:




I always check out this area to see Ring-tailed Dragons (Ctenophorus caudicinctus) that live on rocks beneath the trees.


... female Ring-tailed Dragon


... male Ring-tailed Dragon

[moloch]

We left Windorah and then drove for a day up to the Eyrean Basin west of Winton. Along the way, we passed eucalyptus trees that were infested with mistletoes. I've read before that mistletoe is the host plant of the Azures (Ogyris sp.) so we stopped and had a look at the plants. We immediately found a number of these colourful butterflies. Unfortunately, they remained high in the trees. Also, the males seemed to be in continuous combat and rarely would land for more than a few seconds at a time. I managed to take a few shots of the males but could never photograph the larger females that had a couple of orange spots on the outer upper wing.

Satin Azure (Ogyris amaryllis)







Caper Whites (Belenois java) were also common in the area and visited the mistletoe flowers.

[moloch]

The Eyrean Basin west of Winton was a scenic place. We were lucky to arrive at the start of the wet. Clouds built up during the day and the colours of the sunset were beautiful. Later that night, we experienced torrential rain and nearly continuous lightning. We had to take shelter since we could not see the road and there were flash floods in some of the creek crossings. These conditions stimulated reptile activity and we had one of our most productive night drives the following night.






Spinifex grew in large clumps here. These seemed to form outwardly growing ovals so were no doubt from the same original plant.




Our campsite where we waited out the storm on the first night. At night, we could not see lights in any direction. We were all alone in this empty part of Australia.



These pretty red native roaches were numerous on the road.

[moloch]

Strophurus krisalys look similar to Northern Spiny-tailed Geckos but have a blue rather than orange mouth lining.






Prickly Knob-tailed Geckos (Nephrurus asper) were seen a few times. These are big geckos with a massive head and a bizarre, tiny tail that ends with a ball.

... adult


... juvenile




Pale-striped Ground Geckos (Lucasium immaculatum) are nicely marked geckos that mostly have an inaccessible range. This area seemed to be good for the species and we encountered several on the road.



Tessellated Gecko (Diplodactylus tessellatus) were found a few times.