Auswildlife.com

A cluster of islands in the Pacific, well worth a visit. Originally named the New Hebrides by Captian Cook, the country was ruled by a joint British and French admistration until 1980. But comical it was, as both admistrations had separate offices and duplicated departments! The French drove on the right-hand side of the road while the British drove on the left. What a joke! Very few things were ever achieved because the two administrations couldn’t agree on anything.  It’s a wonder that the locals put up with this rediculous nonsense for so long! But no longer – they have their independence now.

Flying foxes are trapped or shot and used as food since most areas are subsistence farming. Luckily two of the three species in the area appear to be reasonably secure and not at threat of extinction. The one below is Pteropus anetianus, the Vanuatu Flying Fox. The lower pic is a Coconut Crab.

Coconut crabs are also an endangered species but are now harvested for food through a conservation management program that monitors numbers and allocates a quota for consumption.  There is also a special crab sanctuary on Vanua Lava, one of the most northerly islands. Also on the island, resides a very rare and poorly known flying fox, Pteropus fundatus or Banks Flying Fox.  I think this island might be a good destination for a future visit!

We certainly have some interesting spiders in Australia, like this little creature – called the ‘Salticid Ant Eater’ or Zenodorus orbicularis. In the hills behind Brisbane, they are commonly seen on eucalypt trees where, as their name implies, they hunt ants.  At only about 4-5mm long, they are very easily overlooked, so you need to spend quite some time looking at each tree to find them. They are a species of jumping spider, as you more observant spider enthusiats would have already worked out. I had to use a rather special lens to get sufficent magnification to make him a worthwhile subject (“him” because of the size and shape of the abdomen).

The only problem that I had was that, being a jumping spider, he wanted to jump and so as I moved in, I noticed him looking up…. and then he was gone! It took me a while to work out that he had jumped onto the top of the lens! Hmmm!

Ooops…he’s going up!!  It’s ok, I won’t bore you with the next picture – one of bare white bark….

There are more spiders in the Photo Library – orange link at the top right of this page.

In managing the website, I keep an eye on the various search terms that people use when visiting, and one of the most popular is ‘kangaroo’.  It’s not unexpected, but what I did think was interesting, was that many people seem to think there is just one species of kangaroo! In fact we have many. So here is a very brief wildlife photographic journey through just a few of the species that we have. Sorry, I don’t have photos of them all…yet.

Firstly, apart from the species that we normally associate with the name, there are a few smaller marsupials that use the same bipedal hopping gait and belong to the same ‘Superfamily’ (Macropodoidea).  Here is an example of one, the Northern Bettong (Bettongia tropica).  There are ten species of Bettongs and Potoroos, two of which are now extinct and most others are highly threatened. The species photographed is listed as Endangered under our Federal legislation.

Having got them out of the way, we can now move on to the animals that look more like real kangaroos.  Mind you, there are a few groups that I am glossing over here. For example the Tree Kangaroos, that don’t really act like real kangaroos, and the Hare-Wallabies because I don’t have any pictures of them.  So if we move on from those liitle omissions (!!) we get to the true kangaroos and wallabies.

Some examples of wallabies – which are just small kangaroos (Most of them in the same Genus, Macropus)

Agile Wallabies (Macropus agilis) as featured in the article about Cape Hillsborough, Queensland. A wallaby of the northern tropical savannahs.

Red-necked Wallaby (Macropus rufogriseus). Locally common in parts of south eastern Australia.

Northern Nailtail Wallaby (Onychogalea unguifera).  A wallaby of the northern tropical woodlands. It has two other close relatives that once occurred in more southerly locales. One of these is now extinct and the other is exceedlingly rare.  All have a curious little nail-like projection at the tip of the tail which gives them their common name.

The Rock Wallabies are another separate genus (Petrogale) and there are quite a few species recognised, many of which look almost exactly the same! The Mareeba Rock Wallaby is a good example.

Lets have a closer look at a joey…..

The Brush-tailed Rock Wallaby (Petrogale penicillata) of south-eastern Australia.

There are also a couple of species of Pademelons (Thylogale) which are denizens of wet forests and dense undergrowth. This is a Red-legged Pademelon (Thylogale stigmatica) (below)

The Swamp Wallaby (Wallabia bicolor) has a genus all to itself.  A very common animal along the east Australian coast and also venturing inland into semi-arid areas. I have put two images of this wallaby in here.

Then we can move to the larger macropods – the Euro (Macropus robustus), found over much of the Australian mainland. Along the Great Dividing Range on the east coast, Euros take on a very different appearance. The males are large, powerfully built and stooped, while the females are small, pale grey with white markings and look like an entirely different species. These east coast animals are usually called Wallaroos.  The picture below is of an arid zone Euro in Western Australia.

The Eastern Grey Kangaroo (Macropus giganteus) is, as it’s name suggests, quite large. Males can weigh up to 85kg, but this the exception rather than the rule.  This species is widespread in eastern Australia and the changes that white settlement has bought about, have greatly advantaged this species, so that numbers are now well in excess of that which originally occurred. Over the past 200 years or more, we have a) cleared forests and created more grasslands, b) created more water points and c) managed to kill off the kangaroo’s main predator, the Dingo. It’s no wonder that their population has exploded.  Although sometimes portrayed as a threatened species and in need of conservation, the reality is that there are many other Australian species that are in far more serious predicaments than these animals.  Nevertheless, they still make nice photographic subjects….

And then we can move to the Red Kangaroo (Macropus rufus).  Only the males tend to be red. Females are usually a blue-grey colour (although not always).  Males can weigh up to 92kg although once again, this is more an exception rather than the rule.  It is an animal of the open arid plains.  I have included a picture of a male and also a two females.

…and that concludes the auswildlife kangaroo odyssey. Cheers, Bruce

Here are some portraits of one of our north Queensland leaf-nosed bat species, Hipposideros cervinus. Yes, they are two different individuals and no, I didn’t mess with the colours in PhotoShop! These are the actual colours.

Bats that live in cave and mine roost sites with a high ammonia content in the atmosphere, often have their fur bleached a beautiful orange, as in this first bat. The ammonia is produced by the anerobic breakdown of the bat guano and so it’s not uncommon in roost sites with poor air flow which tends to trap the ammonia. Bats seem to be able to survive in this high ammonia atmosphere because they go into torpor (a slowing of the metabolism and ouward appearance of being asleep) and this causes a buildup of CO2 in the blood which buffers the effects of the ammonia. When they become active and fly out, the ammonia is expelled with the CO2.

I should also mention that photographs like these are not possible unless the bats are caught and this is illegal unless you have a permit from the relevant State’s Parks and Wildlife Service. These animals are my particular research speciality and so I have permits etc.

One of the best places to see these amazing animals is at Tarzali Lakes Aquaculture Centre on the Atherton Tablelands in north Queensland. Although they are a relatively widespread animal, sightings are less guaranteed at other sites or alternatively, they occur in the dim light of late afternoon or early morning. The Tazarli platypus are active however, in broad daylight, which makes photographing them a lot easier! Vist the Aquaculture Centre’s website for more information about the locality and this is where it is on Google Maps. Happy snapping!

Here are the residents:

Out of the murky gloom came this pair of sharks and then the lead animal turned and headed straight towards me.  Determined to get a few photos, I kept my eye to the viewfinder and put all other thoughts out of my mind as they came in… racking the zoom to full wide-angle to try to get them in the picture – it was slightly unnerving. Then  just at the last moment, the leading shark swerved away. Well, I mean, it had too unless it wanted to crash into the perspex! Yes… did you really think I would be in the water with a pair of bull sharks?  This was at SeaWorld on the Queensland Gold Coast, Australia.

Most of the information on this site is designed for those who are self-sufficient and want to do their own touring and wildlife watching. There are however advantages to taking organised tours when visiting unfamiliar countries. By taking a tour, you benefit from local knowledge and make the most effecient use of your time. Organised tours are especially good when they are not too regimented and allow you to spend time doing what you like most (I am assuming that this relates to photography, since you found this site!).  A few such tours are on offer in Australia.

I am going to post links to various eco-tours as I get the chance. This one is especially for those who want to check out bird-watching tours.  This link will take you to a number of tour operators as well as some other handy resources. I know and can personally recommend Fine Feather Tours and for longer trips it’s hard to go past Klau’s tours at Kirrama Tours.  Both are listed in this great website.

There are many more bird images in the Library, entered from the Library Home Page

Ulva Island is small island nestled in a bay near Oban, Stewart Island, New Zealand. If you are in Oban, you can catch a water taxi across and spend a day there. Plenty of endemic birds for photographers and nature lovers! A picture is a thousand words…

Zoos and wildlife parks are great places to see lots of interesting birds and animals. Some are even photogenic! In Singapore, check out:

The Singapore Zoo and Jurong Bird Park. You can catch a bus to the Zoo and a train and then bus to the Bird Park.

The Zoo has an excellent range of species from South-East Asia but like all zoos, there are the perennial favorites – hippos etc.  Some are great for photography but often it’s a matter of timing and sheer luck to get varoius subjects in the right situations for a photo.  Nice Orang-Utan exhibit!

The Bird Park has many species from the local area – SE Asia, and also from Africa and South America. There is one very large walk-through aviary with a waterfall (!) and much to see in there. If you keep records with your images, then as you photograph varoius species in the Park it’s worth writing down their names from the id signage. I did it in a half-hearted sort of way and it took me a week of searching the www to work out what the rest of them were!

An aboreal marsupial and one of the most popular and well-known species in Australia. A great souce of general information on them can be found here.  However planning to photograph them in the wild is not particularly easy. The vast majority of images are taken in wildlife parks where the well polished wooden branches of their artificial trees clearly indicate the setup. To find them in the wild can be difficult for a number of reasons; in habitats where they occur, they are normally found in low numbers, they are usually high up,and they are nocturnal animals, so during the day they are often asleep.  There are some reserves where the Koalas are more or less in natural habitats and these can be worth visiting. The picture shown here was taken in Tidbinbilla reserve near Canberra, but some months after the picture was taken, a major bushfire burnt through the reserve and all but one animal died. I don’t know the current status of the reserve, but you can see that it was an ideal site. Koalas are not mentioned in their latest on-line info.  The reserve is still worth a visit for the other animals however.

In Queensland, there is Daisy Hill reserve just south of Brisbane. Koalas can be seen here but you would have to be lucky to get one in a good photographic position.

Finally, and maybe the best place – Kangaroo Island in South Australia. Koalas were introduced here and have now over-populated the island, so you may very easily see and get to photograph koalas here. These are the southern form with dark, long shaggy hair. If you are curious about this variation across the specie’s range, then read the Wiki (first link on this article).  I have  never been to the island, so can’t give you any first hand advice, but there is quite a bit of information here.  If you know of other sites please leave a comment and I will incorporate it. Happy Koalas!