Yellow and green with envy

Though denying ever being away with the fairies (Fairy Gerygones and Wrens are different cases!), I admit to chasing after dragonflies (click pic to enlarge), butterflies and pretty creatures whenever mood takes and chance offers. So, three results of pursuit - with variations on the theme of yellow and green:

First, the lumberingly named but aerially agile Austrogomphus prasinus. A male, the guidebook relates, as shown by the yellow, forked rear appendages. This dragonfly sped into view today and drifted from stem to stem of giant cane grass after drawing me away from butterflies (below) clustered on a cane road.

The Common Grass Yellows (Eurame hecabe) were gathered in several places along the sandy gravelled road sipping (licking?) salts after light rain overnight and this morning. Also popular with the 40mm wingspan butterflies was a flattened patch of horse dung. No other of the several butterfly species in the area showed interest in the gravel or the dung.

Finally, a small Lace Monitor (Varanus varius) encountered a few days ago (pre-Cyclone Hamish alerts) near Dungeness boat ramp, where the Herbert River emerges into the bottom end of the Hinchenbrook Channel. The monitor stopped sunning itself and skittered across the road when it saw me coming camera in hand. It disappeared - as they say, like a rat up a drainpipe - up a drainpipe! 

Such ability to vanish like a fairy in a yellow funk leaves me green with envy.

Chasing wren to a conclusion

Chased a male Red-backed Fairy Wren back and forth along a small area of swampy woodland track for about 15 minutes in Tyto today. The bird danced in and out of small trees, vine-hung pandanus, scrubby weeds and long grasses. The first result? A few so-so pictures, one with fresh-caught grasshopper (above). A strong argument for purchase of flash unit.

Result two? The wren hopped across some scraggly vines, one of which dangled interestingly. As small Amethystine Pythons do. It had almost certainly been in the same position throughout all my chase after the wren. Hiding out in the open. Well, openly in the shade of a pandanus. A strong argument for standing still and and looking, looking, looking at our surroundings.

For now, I lean to the second argument. It's much cheaper, and applies universally.

Elsewhere today, came upon this Lace Monitor on a vacant block in the seaside suburb of Forrest Beach. The 1.2-1.3 metre beauty was taking the morning sun, as reptiles do, with throat and breast directed to the incoming warmth. Took some time to capture the flickering tongue as the animal got a long-range 'taste' of me and vanished into a culvert hidden by the long grass.  

Watching and monitoring ...

Sat waiting without luck for some action at the Azure Kingfisher nest tunnel in the rainforest creek bank today but found something much bigger crunching around in the leaf litter.

Don't see many Lace Monitors near Ingham and certainly nothing near the 1.2-metre size of today's wary big guy. Too wary for me, anyway. Couldn't get close enough for any sort of picture.

So I'll throw in a shot of a smaller monitor I photographed a few weeks back on the other side of the rainforest.

And I'll spare you yet another lovely Red-bellied Black Snake I'd hoped to sneak right up on. Didn't get close enough for the super closeup!

But did manage to tiptoe towards a juvenile Brown Cuckoo-Dove (Macropygia amboinensis). The bird untypically chose a low branch on the edge of the rainforest. Must confess to not having in the past noticed the full attractiveness of the scalloped juvenile plumage.

Less lucky inside the rainforest. Chased in after a Noisy Pitta (Pitta versicolor). And saw at an obscured distance two birds whose paths crossed atop a fallen tree (Pittas often hop along fallen timber). Result? Two gloriously coloured blurs of bluey-greens toned with orangey-reds. In the bin!

Rounded off the increasingly sunny day with a quick loop through Tyto and a brief interlude with a Golden-headed Cisticola (Cisticola exilis).

All the Hardheads, the two Glossy Ibises and many other waterbirds have gone from the main lagoon following the recent run of night showers and rain. Seems the national Little Bittern survey transect I'd notionally mapped out will be more waterlogged than I'd expected.