Broken Hill Herp'n

[Nephrurus]

I recently headed out to Broken Hill for a friend's wedding, but I took the opportunity to go out and do a bit of herping while I was at it.

Going with some mates out to see the sculptures in the Living Desert NP. While we were there it was pleasantly clear and warm and a few herps came out to bask.



We found an Earless Dragon Tympanocryptis tetraporophora on the walk up to the sculptures.

Tree Skinks Egernia striolata were also about and clearly don't read books. They were sheltering and basking on rocks.

Big Central Bearded Dragons Pogona vitticeps (and some little ones) were out sunning themselves as well. Big and fat, they'd clearly benefited from the huge numbers of locusts out in that neck of the woods.

on the way back I spotted this monster basking and I was very excited to see this Stoke's Skink Egernia stokesii.

More photos of each species can be seen on my Pbase site.


We also saw some very fat Curl Snakes Suta suta on the road on the way out to broken hill, and some very fat dead eastern brown snakes on the road on the way back home.

Everything is in amazing condition out that way at the moment. It's well worth a trip to see massive expanses of water and endless plant growth. Next spring should be pretty exciting.


-Henry

 

[levis04]

Great photos neph as always.

 

[zulu]

re Broken

Interesting henry,seems like there will be fluctuating numbers of animals in general with all the water and food,good to see.

 

[Origamislice]

i love brocken hill, one of my grandparents is curently living there and both my parents and my other set off grandparents used to live there. good to hear its in good condition!

 

[Slats]

Great photos!!

 

[Sock Puppet]

on the way back I spotted this monster basking and I was very excited to see this Stoke's Skink Egernia stokesii.
-Henry

Sounds like you were pretty stoked to see that, Henry

 

[moloch05]

Nice, Henry. Did you venture out at night? It is a good place for geckos.

A trip next spring should be interesting.

Regards,
David

 

[Nephrurus]

Very nice Sock Puppet, I love a good pun, especially a scientific-name related one.

I didn't manage to get out at night as I really had no time for herping and temps were pretty low (although on the night of the wedding ti would have been perfect!). I did find some tesselated geckos around Nyngan as well as an assortment of frogs (I'll post them later on) but it was pretty cool. I think next spring will be a great time for a trip out to just about anywhere in western NSW or Qld.

-H

 

[jordo]

Nice pics. Tree skink looks a bit different to what I'm used to, have to get up there one day.

 

[Acrochordus]

Great photo's and report, Do you shoot in RAW?
Thanks Tim.

 

[Nephrurus]

Jordo, i thoughthey might be saxatilus at first until I remembered they don't occur anywhere near that area.
I have photos of striolata from Culgoa NP (NE of Bourke) that look completely different.

Always in raw Tim, the I process with light room, leaving all the raw files unmodified to be stashed away on a couple of external harddrives. If they need furthur work I use photoshop although usually i can't be bothered. Mainly i use PS with bird photos to reduce noise in the background and sharpen the subject.

 

[Nephrurus]

Kicking around Nyngan at night on the way back home, I managed to find a few frogs hopping about on the road at night.

By far and away the most common frog on the road was juvenile green tree frogs Litoria caerulea.

I probably saw a thousand on the road, intermigled with Naked Treefrog Lit. rubella and Emerald-spotted Treefrog Lit. peroni.

I did however spot a few neat critters though.

Southern Holy-cross Frog are a really cool critter that is always a treat to see as they are seldom above the ground very long. I found a few juveniles and a single adult. The juvies looked like little ping pong balls bouncing across the ground.

Less evident were the juvenile salmon striped frog Limnodynastes salmini. Little brown frogs on the road all looked the same.

L.rubella

L. salmini

N. bennetti

Again, theres more photos of each of these species on my pbase site (see my signature).

-H

 

[greeny1]

wow, those pics are awesome!!! we are organising a trip out to camerons corner and cant wait, love the western NSW district, alot of differant secies compared to the coast, looks like you had an awesome trip.
thanks mark

 

[Nephrurus]

Ah western NSW is a poor mans western QLD. Camerons corner should be pretty good though, especially after the rains they've been having. Make sure you take your torch and do some searching for geckos. You should be able to find some nice ones out there.

-H

 

[TNWJackson]

Very cool. I shall definitely have to get out that way in the not too distant future (Spring sounds good!).

 

[Acrochordus]

Thanks for that Henry!!!
Tim

 

[Nephrurus]

Here are a few bird photos I took while I was out at Nyngan in the caravan park there. There are some very comfortable cabins that are surrounded by birds.

Spotted Bowerbird

Australian Ringneck Parrot

Red Winged Parrot

Zebra Finch

Red-rumped Parrot

Brown Treecreeper

 

[H.bitorquatus]

Nice shots, love the earless dragon shot! some of those bird shots look very sharp, are you using a tripod for all the birds? Would be annoying lugging it around I would think.

 

[TNWJackson]

Those are some lovely bird photos. What sort of lens are you using?

 

[Nephrurus]

I don't actually own a tripod. I should get one though.

At the moment I own the very old and slow Nikon 80-400mm VR lens. I bought it on ebay for less than half it's RRP.
It focus is very slow and can be tempermental. You need very good light to be able to use this lens without a tripod. This is why most of my PNG photos were quite dodgey.

If i was to buy more camera gear I'd probably buy a 70-200mm VRII with a 2x tele converter or spend alot more and get a 300 2.8 VR with a 2x teleconverter.


Henry