Tree frog walks from snake's jaws

Muted barking in trees 30 metres across swamp grasses led me to Common Tree Snake trying to eat big pale-hued White-lipped Tree Frog in Tyto today.

First strike got frog behind front leg. Some blood flowed down side. Grip later shifted - before my arrival - to rear foot. Usual frog defence: make a lot of noise and either wedge into crevice or try to walk away.

Frog won - as I was changing lenses! Makes it Frogs 4 Snakes 0 for my sightings over recent years. But in all cases the frogs were large and the tree snakes moderate in length (about 1m).

No great pix from any of the four contests, but above, from three years back, is best.

Honeyeaters' nest lays an egg

Brown-backed Honeyeaters (Ramsayornis modestus) flourish in Tyto in spite of many nesting failures. They usually build their bulky, dangling, domed-entry nests lowish over water and away from prying eyes (that's us, folks!).

Their caution doesn't stop other honeyeaters from stealing from the mass of nesting material. It does make the nests more difficult to find than their size would indicate.

The bird pictured and its mate have chosen as bad a site as could be imagined. Smack in front of the bird hide, high off the dry ground, and in an area teeming with tree snakes (three or four live in the hide roof!) and the odd passing vandal. Any chance of a happy outcome? Not one.

They should have asked the Yellow Honeyeaters that built and abandoned a much smaller nest tucked secretly within the same branch system what life near a hide was like. 'Too much for us,' would have been the reply. 'We couldn't stand all the noise and movement. Couldn't shift quickly enough!'

Or quizzed the Willie Wagtail sitting on a neat cup nest slightly above human eyes looking out of the hide to the southwest. 'We love it here,' she'd say. 'We got cheesed off with vandals destroying the nests we built inside the hide. But this is perfect.'

Or tried to find the Red-browed Finches that reared the usual big family in the top of the tree. So cunning were the parents, they'd fly in to one tree and dart across it into the nest tree. Almost totally unseen and all high out of harm's way.

I'll let things play out without stepping in as I'm sure the Brown-backeds will soon realise their mistake. After vandals twice destroyed nests of Willies sitting on eggs I began removing all material as soon as building began. The birds took the hint and have since reared young in two of the three trees around the hide.

Elsewhere today, brief sighting of female and probable male Lovely Fairy-Wren (not far from abandoned nest), another sighting of pale Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo seen last week being ignored by a Red-backed Fairy-Wren, today fed by three wrens, and fleeting fly-bys from the Azure Kingfisher (seemingly too busy to stop at the nest tunnel - which may as yet be more tunnel than nest).

Why's the tree snake on my head?

What's the tree snake doing on my head? I don't know. All rather unusual.

Ride up to lookout knoll as usual this morning. Duck under Weeping Fig and pull up beside the roofed shelter, as usual. Stay on bike, propped on left leg and looking down over the lagoon, as usual.

Feel gentle movement on my back and shoulder. Not usual. Look at right shoulder and see sturdy dark and light blue midsection of Common Tree Snake (Dendrelaphis punctulata). Not usual.

'Hello. What are you up to?' I ask. No reply. As usual. Feel more movement across shoulder and back, and up on to wide-brimmed cloth hat. Not usual.

Movement on back stops. Tail of snake dangles before my eyes. Try to ease hat off head and get good look at my guest. More movement on to back and over left shoulder. Not usual.

Turn left and find 1.2m snake coiled about chamfered 4x4 roof post. It seems unsure whether to go on its way or return to me. Most unusual.

Settles on slight loosening of hold on post and drops coiled about 60cm to bench. Uncoils down to ground, accelerates two metres to base of fig and speeds up tree (pictured). As usual.

Didn't want to overdo this story in the telling. The brief encounter gave me a huge lift. But was no more than the most accidental of meetings. Though most unusual.

I've no way of knowing whether the snake joined me from the fig or from the rafters and beams of the shelter. And the couple of magical minutes with the drop-in could scarcely be called quality time. Unimportant. Such moments stay with you forever. Sure beats the usual!

Saw another four tree snakes through the morning. One routed by angry Willie Wagtails (assisted by Yellow Honeyeaters) as it sought to loot their nest, three others sunning. Not one showed any interest in climbing on my head! Definitely as usual.