The Bad, the Ugly and the Beautiful

Steamy stuff in the daytime? Sounds a bit like soap opera to me. We'll call it The Bad, the Ugly and the Beautiful!  

Not so bad to look at, but ugly is as ugly does. And what the Cane Toad (Bufo marinus) does is reproduce its poisonous self in noisome numbers: up to 30,000 eggs per female a season. Perhaps 99% will not survive. Still leaves 300 to do their worst. Look closely and you'll see a chain of black eggs stretching along the flank of the male toad (above, at work in Tyto. Click to enlarge).

Hard to see bad barbed wire as anything but ugly, even with an attractive young Welcome Swallow (Hirundo neoxena) taking a comfort stretch upon its rustiness. But I was taken with the colour match between rust and parts of the bird. (Note to barbed wire collectors: I don't think this is a rare piece.)

Nothing ugly about the Ulysses butterfly (Papilio ulysses), though the brilliant blue coloration signals a warning against swallowing the swallowtails. The males sip salts from small puddles, in part to produce pheromones to attract females. Their liquid uptake - and throughput - must be considerable as this butterfly spent several minutes moving from puddle to tiny puddle and produced scores of drops, such as that shown.

Nothing ugly or bad about Plumed Whistling Ducks (Dendrocygna eytoni). Two have taken up temporary quarters in a waterlogged corner of the caravan park. Funnily enough, Plumed Whistlers can give the impression they are averse to water. They stand around by day, prefer ground landings to splashdowns, will breed far from water, and feed nocturnally on grasses and other low growth.

Well, that didn't go so badly, did it?

Chick gives parents bad turn

White-browed Crake (Porzana cinerea) chick took an unusual turn at Tyto today. It took to the water instead of getting under vegetation's cover.

In turn, the parents set about creating diversions to draw me away. One took to the water and hopped about on lotus leaves. The other trailed an 'injured' wing into the long grasses.

Squeaky noises nearby suggested two or three other little black chicks in hiding. Probably getting ready to scold the bold - or unwise - one.

Its behaviour was so untypical I assumed on first seeing it puddling about it had been caught in mud or had snagged a foot. Only when I drew closer did the chick head for cover.

Then it changed its mind and took to the water. Another change of mind - possibly in response to calls from the vegetation - and it finally did the 'natural' thing and got out of sight. Black isn't such a protective colour in blazing sunlight!

Others showing up in the sultry heat (33C+) today were a pair of Latham's Snipe (Gallinargo hardwickii). Showing up - for snipe - doesn't mean showing out.
Here's the pair doing their usual trick of hiding out right in front of the birdo. But the reeds don't do a great job disguising them. They prefer more mixed cover, and quickly headed off to find some. I did manage one so-so flight picture.

Still at the water's edge, all is alive - sadly, with 'toadpoles'. Seething is the word. Parts of the shore are almost equally alive with toadlets. The good news is that almost all will fail to survive. And cane toad numbers seem to have plateaued (perhaps even dropped) in recent years.