I'm taking Wildlife of the Hunter Valley to YouTube !

I've decided to take Wildlife of the Hunter Valley to YouTube - I have so much footage that's unlikely to see the light of day otherwise, so why not share to a wider audience.   

Hope to see you there !  

Gavin 

Something different - a Western brown snake, Myall snakes and more

 

I was working in a remote mining town in outback NSW for the last couple of weeks, and encountered this beautiful Western brown snake sunning itself by the side of the road late in the afternoon.     

Until recently this species was known as the Western Brown snake, Pseudonaja nuchalis but has now been reclassified as the "Strap-snouted Brown Snake" Pseudonaja aspidorhyncha.  Reclassifying old familiar species seems to be happening ever more frequently, and I'm not sure it's always warranted.  The common name bestowed on this majestic species just doesn't seem fitting to me.  Regardless of what you call them, these are a dangerously venomous species and are extremely fast, defensive and most definitely not to be molested.      

Speaking of interesting snakes, I noticed that Myall snakes, Suta suta were also quite common in the area.  While these inoffensive snakes are venomous, as long as you don't try to pick them up, they are inoffensive and harmless.  If you do pick them up, you had better know what you are doing because they will readily bite, and allegedly they pack a wallop.  

An inoffensive Myall snake alongside my size 14 boot for scale.  The snake ignored me completely, allowing me to take a couple of photos before I moved on, leaving it to its road basking.  The area is so remote that there was little risk from traffic to the snake.  

I also observed several Green tree frogs, numerous Tessellated geckos, several road killed Bearded dragons (sadly, one was a gravid female that left eggs all over the road) and a blind snake on the same night.  I didn't bother to identify the blind snake as you have to handle them to count scales to identify them properly, and they pack a decent defensive stink excretion.      

     

   

Large Eastern brown snake - DOR Cassilis 20/09/2024

It was a perfect Friday afternoon, 20th September 2024.  I had just entered the upper Hunter valley, it was a perfect bluebird sky, 28 degrees C, the 4WD was on cruise control and the traffic was nearly non-existent.  Tex Perkins and the cruel sea were mumbling on about a black stick, and I was in bliss - heading for home after a fortnight working in the dust and flies of a remote mining town.  I noticed a very solid elapid on the road verge, and hoped it would still be there when I turned the vehicle around . . .   

I guess you should be careful what you wish for - because unfortunately he was still there - dead as a doornail - right on the side line of the road.  

Notice the head is fairly similar to the size of the neck? It's been run-over by a car, so it's a little deformed, and this is a large, quite old adult specimen. If it was a smaller snake, it's head would be a lot more "delicately-built".

In life, if this snake was really defensive (and it doesn't take much to make an Eastern brown snake VERY defensive), it would flatten it's neck out quite a lot - which gives rise to the name of it's genus - "Pseudonaja".  By the way, "Naja" is the genus for cobras - hence it is quite well described as a "pseudo-cobra".  Pretty good description, because its hood looks a little like a cobra when it's really, really annoyed, except our Brown snakes are about 1,000 times faster, more deadly and vastly more agile than a cobra.      

       

Here's what the ventral surface looks like - the yellow belly with orange spots is fairly characteristic of Eastern brown snakes.  

Final point - the red flesh protruding from the snakes' anus above is not intestine - they are hemipenes - yes - male snakes have two penises.  Lizards do too.  If you zoom in on the hemipene on the top, you can clearly see the barbs and spikes on his manhood - similar to a domestic tom-cats'. 

So in closing, this was a very large, very old male Eastern brown snake.  A wild guess, he would have been around 20 years of age, and a real survivor.  Such a sad way for a magnificent animal to end his days.     

The Eastern koels are here too - Tuesday 24th September 2024

Its Tuesday 24th September 2024, and I was up at 5 am, before first light, taking my morning exercise in the crisp, still air.  I was thinking to myself that it feels like we are going to have a warm summer this year when the call of an Eastern koel echoed around the neighbourhood at Casa da Ayre.  Even my dog paused for a moment.  I reached down, gave her a quick hug and walked on.  Tempus fugit indeed . . .     

Channel-billed cuckoos arrive - Sunday 22nd Sept 2024

 They're back again already - it feels like a week has past since I wrote my last migratory cuckoos have arrived post and wow - another year has been & gone and the cycle of renewal begins anew . . .  

I was in Whitebridge, having a rest late in the afternoon sunshine after riding through Glenrock reserve last Sunday, 22nd Sept 2024.  I was chatting with my friend when our conversation was interrupted by the raucous shrieks of a Channel-billed cuckoo - sure enough, moments later one of the distinctive large grey cuckoos flew directly overhead - with a squadron of Pied currawongs and Noisy miners in hot pursuit.  Somewhere a female was likely silently sneaking around, looking for am unguarded nest . . .

       

   

A big rustle in the bushes . . .

 I have been out of town for work for the last few weeks, and truly relished the perfect spring weather that greeted me when I returned.  It was a weekend of endless blue skies and warm days - in the high 20 degrees.  A friend & I wanted to catch up, so we rode our mountain bikes around the quiet trails in Glenrock reserve.  We were having a break when "something" was disturbed by our presence, and took off through the dry undergrowth at a rate of knots.  My friend was really worried about a snake - but smiled when I pointed to the culprit watching us from a nearby tree.  

Lace monitors are still common in the area, right here on the coast despite the rapidly expanding population moving to Lake Macquarie.  Nice to see a Lace monitor in the bush doing it's thing, so very close to my home - rather than sad road pizza.     

   

Bush sign posts

 

"This is MY patch !" says the local wombat

Distinctively "squarish" Wombat scats and scratchings

If you've spent much time in the bush here in Lake Macquarie, you will have seen the territorial scat piles that Wombats leave to mark their territory.  If they're fresh (like the one above) you can't miss the scratchings and unmistakeable smell of fresh earth and stinky poo !    

Wombats are friendly herbivores, that eat nothing but roots and leaves.  There has to be a joke there somewhere.  They are extremely common in the Hunter Valley, though unless you're driving in the bush at night you usually won't see them.  But you'll certainly see where they have been. This is a typical example of their scat markings - they'll leave a gift somewhere unmissable - such as the middle of a bush track, surrounded by scratchings to make it even more obvious. The smell from this pile made my nose hairs curl as I walked past it yesterday.  "Mine, Mine, MINE !" it screamed.  

The funny thing you will notice about Wombat poo is that it is typically square.  So next time you're in the bush and see unmistakeable, matchbox-sized cubes of poo perched carefully on a rock in the middle of a track, you know what left them !