Baza's call carries killer rhyme

The Baza is an honest bird
Whose 'Ee-chew' rings true to word
For frogs and insects in the trees
'Ee-chew' equals  'Eat-you', if you please

Pleased to Eat-you. Oops, I mean, meet you.

Let's take a little walk

'Black' Butcherbird...rufous morph (sorry about the picture)

Little Shrike-Thrush ... delays the quest

Come for a little birding walk with me. We'll gloss over most of the trees and plants and concentrate on living things.

Nearly 8am at Tyto carpark, warm (say 20C), greyish light, low cloud, mild breeze. Promise of later sunshine.

Brown Honeyeaters, Yellow Honeyeaters, House Sparrows, Bar-shouldered Doves, Spotted Turtle-Doves and Indian Mynas in the carpark plantings and backing eucalypts.

On the bike (you walk, I ride), toward the first lagoon. Darter, wings outstretched, takes warmth from the feeble sunlight. Agile Wallabies crop grass. Near hairless joey pokes its brick-red head from one pouch. Withdraws shyly. Fairy Martins hawk for insects and dip to the water.

Turn right toward north boundary (suburbia) and routine daily survey in Birds Austalia's preferred format: 2-hectare, 20-minute count. Dry creek lined by small trees to left, open ground right with 20+ Bush Stone-Curlews - beyond survey limit - standing around. Whistling Kite opens count, then Fairy Martins (5), Masked Lapwings (2), Peaceful Doves (2), Crimson Finches (8), Red-browed Finches (6), Willie Wagtails (2), a Straw-necked Ibis, White-browed Robins (3) and a Black Butcherbird.

But it's not black. The bird's an immature rufous morph, race rufescens. Cracticus quoyi adults are black but one nest may offer rufous, and black. More to point, the species isn't numerous in Tyto and photographic desire takes over. Twist and turn, duck and dodge, miss chances, lose bird, refind, lose again, get distracted by juvenile White-browed Robin. Finally emerge almost 45 minutes later with so-so pictures of Butcher, robins and Little Shrike-Thrush (another distraction).

'Gimme food'. 'Gimme food'. 'Gimme food'. White-browed Robin proves immune to pester power.

Onward to main lagoon lookout. Forest Kingfishers, Green Pigmy Geese, Australasian Grebes, Comb-crested Jacanas, Wandering Whistling-Ducks, Pacific Black Ducks, Little Pied Cormorants, Great Egret, Intermediate Egret, Black-necked Stork (juvenile triplets), Royal Spoonbills, Yellow-billed Spoonbill, Black Kite overhead, and Welcome Swallows and White-bellied Woodswallows.

To the hide. Find professional guide, photographer, cinematographer and Tyto instigator and visionary John Young seeking responses from resident Little Bitterns (2 heard), Spotless Crakes and White-browed Crakes. No sightings or sounds for me (apart from on John's hi-tech toys).

Chat away (birds, snakes, butterflies, more birds). Spot Australian Reed Warblers, White-throated Gerygone and one Little Kingfisher. Plus lovely green/black male Cairns Birdwing (butterfly), and a White-lipped Treefrog on the bulrushes. At a distance, Grey Teal, a pair of White-necked Herons and four White Ibises.

Quick look at Brown-backed Honeyeaters completing a nest near the hide and at a noisy Yellow Oriole and John gone. I follow some Olive-backed Orioles along the southern creek track. Hello to Bumpy Rocketfrogs in their stump and out southwest on a wide fire trail (access for firefighters).

No sign of the Southern Boobook (first for me: 225 on my Tyto list, of 235 total) harassed by a Spangled Drongo two days ago. But Mistletoe Birds, Sunbirds, MacLeay's Honeyeaters, a lone Fairy Gerygone and the Drongo show up.

Back on to inner lagoon circuit, look for migrant Latham's Snipe. None. Across western end and White-gaped Honeyeaters dash to and from small island. Chestnut-breasted Mannikins in the bulrushes, Nutmeg Mannikins in bushes and a plaintive Horsfield's Cuckoo atop a nearby tree.

No Collared Sparrowhawk in the usual hiding spot down the planted levee but two Sacred Kingfishers dart away. White-winged Triller works water's edge shrubs for insects.

Return to base of lookout and take southern track back toward Brown-backed Honeyeaters' nest. Surprise Common Tree Snake lying in feeble sunshine. Quickly vanishes. Surprise Buff-banded Rail almost below BBs' nest (didn't tell you I'd glimpsed rail first time around!).

No Azure Kingfisher in last big pool on creek. Get four Metallic Starlings, new seasonal arrivals from Papua New Guinea, as compensation.

Movement in gauvas leads to Graceful Honeyeater taking material from part-built nest (possibly BBH). Lose Graceful and turn to find a big Common Tree Snake moving around a tree trunk. Tiptoe up and get poor picture as snake changes mind about ascending tree and drops into long grass.

Walk (bike gets parked here and there) on and see dark head. Male Leaden Flycatcher. Another dark head. Northern Fantail, which sits on felled tree in sunshine. I sit on same trunk. Fantail won't turn to suit camera. Nor will a Silvereye, which pops up from the grass and devours a small insect.

After much singing a male Rufous Whistler appears, followed by a Varied Triller, a White-bellied Cuckoo-Shrike and a Helmeted Friarbird. (Talk about no buses and then three at once!).

A Ulysses butterfly beams its blue brilliance along the creek, and a Wanderer (Monarch) flitters by before I quit my log and head back to the carpark. Always room for more on the list and a Blue-winged Kookaburra makes an excellent final sighting.

What have we forgotten? Probable chunky Red-bellied Black snake diving from sight, Rainbow Lorikeets streaking overhead, Rainbow Bee-eaters 'pirrip'erring in the distance, Tawny Grassbirds sticking to cover, Golden-headed Cisticolas likewise.

That's it. Four hours, a great fun chase to be continued another day, 65 birds seen, plus snakes, butterflies and wallabies and three pictures more or less keepable.

Hope you enjoyed the walk.

Bumpy frog and Mr Grumpy

Now you see him, now you don't!

This Bumpy Rocketfrog (Litoria inermis) might not be a him. Whatever the gender, the frog looks more Mr Grumpy than Bumpy. Not so hard to explain. It's nice and dark and you're in the middle of a mass of rocketfrogs, all dreaming rocketfrog dreams, the next second someone's poking a finger into a cleft in a dead stump and you're rudely prodded awake.Blame a more active frog whose movement caught the prodder's eye.

What can an indignant frog do under such circumstances? Best to play it cool. No noises, not even a 'cluc' or 'wek' - they're for mating. Disdain. Unblinking disdain. Regal disdain.

That's it, the disdain of a monarch. Take up a commanding position and stare the danger down. Then hop off somewhere safer. Such as merging against a dead trunk. Wait for the intruder to go away and play his anthropomorphic games with someone else.

All interesting enough as part of today's life in Tyto, but a curious thing comes with the frog on the stump. As is only too clear, I missed part of frog, and focus is soft. Nothing odd there.

But when I crop any part of the full frame the picture suffers. The more I crop, the more it suffers. Others may find nothing in the picture and feel little regret that (I think) something better was butchered.

Frog bites off two too much

Rebuilt earlier post to bring it within the layout that seems to work best with this template.

FROGS seem to have top PR people, don't they?

And it's not only because many of them are dying off in disturbing numbers all round the world. Seldom do we hear anyone bad-mouthing a frog. Nobody jumps up on a chair if a frog enters the room. Or rushes for a death-dealing broom.

Even the glitteringly colourful tropical rainforest frogs carrying lethal amounts of toxins produce more oohs and aahs at their beauty than flinching from their deadliness.

But a frog has to live. Living for most frogs means death for some other form of life. It's a jungle out there, they say, with that old line from one of Darwin's chums: "Nature raw in tooth and claw". Not so many teeth or claws with frogs, rather a cavernous mouth and an appetite to match.

Yet big eyes and even bigger mouths can lead to biting off more than one can chew. So with this White-lipped Green Treefrog.

In the dark at a caravan park in North Queensland, the frog sought a late-night meal at a Willie Wagtail nest holding three near-fledglings. It grabbed two as one fluttered to safety.

Problem then for the frog was the weight of two birds and its tenuous hold on the wrought iron grille the parent birds had built their cupped nest upon. Gravity won. The frog lost its grip on both birds. One died. The other, put straight back into the nest, survived, along with the third sibling.

The frog lived to bite another day. (Green Treefrogs are thriving.)