A: The orthodontists’s quote this afternoon.

It’s around $6,000 to fill a teenager’s mouth with metal these days.

When we arrived home after the orthodontic shock, I noticed what seemed to be a patterned scarf near the back fence. It was under the Tree of Death, but as there were Peaceful Doves around it, I thought no way it could a Python. Again.

Wrong.

As I walked up to it I was able to see the final few gulps of wing feathers down it’s mouth.

How did he sneak up on a cocky during the day? They are usually nocturnal hunters. Cocky must’ve been really engrossed in something else.

The cat was freaking out, and performed 3 ft vertical jumps everytime it moved. The vets have warned about pets outside at night. Now I’ll have the joy of worrying during sunlight hours as well…

It wasn’t long before those final feathers were forced down that loooong throat.

Then lots of wriggling and stretching to force the whole “lump” further down it’s body. It almost looked as if the unfortunate bird was still alive in there.

 It then rested it’s head in the fork of The Tree of Death for a while. It’s tongue was flickering every time I moved. Try as I might, I couldn’t quite capture the split second it flickered.

This was the smallest of the 3 pythons that have had a cocky meal here. This one was around 2 metres, maybe a tad more. The next shot is of it making an exit, stage left, with it’s head already under the fence. It did get stuck around it’s middle, and wriggled and danced till it made it through. Then it was back to the bush to sleep it off for a few weeks.

I hope that this is the last Python saga I have to tell for a good while, although word must be spreading in the serpent world about the smorgasboard by the back fence…

To finish on a more cute’n'cuddly note, someone else was enjoying a meal this morning:

I seem to be overrun with snakes and spiders.

“If you go down to the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise….”

As I came up to the metre wide trunk of this tree, I wondered where the other half of the resident was – the pointy half.

Tip-toeing quietly around the tree trunk, (which was perched on a steep slope above a very rocky creek bed some metres below), I found this:

One ex-wallaby and a very satisfied Scrubby (Amethystine Python).

That’s dinner taken care of for the next 6 months or so. Would that be considered yo-yo dieting?

Some unexpected garden bounty over the weekend, pretty much all in miniature.

Salvaging my sweet potato vine from the marauding bandicoot brought this treasue to light.

Not more than a mouthful, so back into the soil he went. Something else that went into the soil was this little sweetie:

A gift from my neighbour, who has an extensive collection of bromeliads. This was just one of 2 crates of beautiful broms he gave me. The smell of this mini pineapple was just like an exotic cocktail. I almost pushed a straw into it.

An explosion of new mini critters in the garden – must be because of all the rain, and there has been a lot of it. This was one of the most inquisitive (and beautiful) jumping spiders I’ve ever encountered. He followed me all around the patio. Not bad for a fellow only a few mm long.

Not to be outdone with curiosity was this baby praying mantis. He turned his head to follow me about the palm tree trunk. He was about 20 mm long.

Oh for a macro lense….*sigh*

Male butterflies were quite aggresive in the backyard – chasing off any newcomers. The 2 species below have females which are very differently coloured.

The Eggfly below was almost luminescent in his purple blackness near dusk.

The Cairns birdwing below was one of the most erratic butterflies I’ve seen. It gave me a headache just trying to follow him. He was only still for a nano second. For every decent shot, there were a dozen blurry useless ones. Thank the lord we’re not using film anymore – it’d cost me a fortune!

I’ve a rather larger “friend” I met yesterday  in the bush that I’ll upload images of tomorrow….

Found this skull at Clifton Beach recently.

I’m assuming it’s a fish of some kind.

Anyone have any idea? (I bet Tazar does)

UPDATE FEBRAURY 2010

Well, the mystery has been solved – Boffins at Murdoch Uni have declared it a BATFISH (click here for my photo)

Thanks to all who offered suggestions!

Today the Governement sent in agents to launch a recon mission in my end of the street/creek and my yard. Their mission was to seek (and if necessary, destroy) a foreign invader – The Evil Electric Ant. 

In January, an infestation of these native South American Ants was discovered a few hundred metres away in the resort grounds across the bush from my house. They are not a friendly insect to stumble upon. These ants inject painful venom when they sting, they specifically attack the eyeballs of other animals, including pets, and can blind them. They attack birds and nestlings and farm scale insects. Bad for crops. All round nasty guys.

All week the DPI guys and girls have been laying baits to see if any had spread to our streeet and homes. Today was my turn.

That’s Steve checking bait traps on the banks of Deadman’s Gully. You can see the little pink ribbons where he laid traps inside my front fence.

About 2 dozen baits were laid around my yard, including the herb pots. The Electric ants are gourmets. They will only go for the expensive Don Sausage.

Steve checking the baits after an hour. He was such a knowledgable guy. We yakked for ages about the wonderful biodiversity of this area. He checked out a few insect species for me, as well as my tadpole ponds, which he’s hopeful are NOT canetoads.

This man has spent many years researching wild lion prides in South Africa. He says it’s was an amazing, sometimes heartbreaking, experience. To be checking for ants is quite a bit less stressful than facing a poacher with a semi-automatic machine gun!

We got the all clear – no baddies on our block.

Here is some info from their site:

The electric ant is golden brown in colour and 1 – 1.5mm in length

Overview

Description

Electric ants:

No, it’s not this beautiful girl. She was newly “hatched” yesterday evening, with wings drying out, and happy to be photographed. She was quite an uplifting sight after the sadness of the past few days, so I thought I’d share her.

This is my new Bouncer:

When my face, nor the dog’s, scared my 3.45am visitor, I resorted to desperate measures.

‘Cos when you gotta go, he’s gotta go!

And he did just that, back up the S Bend, after seeing the Cat.

Does anyone else have to face such Toilet Anxiety?

Yesterday was a miserable day, with my head being crushed whilst “driving the porcelain bus” (luckily the Gree Tree Frog has moved out!). I was convinced that I had Dengue Fever. Today, a rapid recovery – obviously not Dengue, and therefore no more sympathy.

Off to the Supermarket. A waste of time really.

                           No meat,

          No yoghurt,

No frozen veg either. I did notice that they had some fresh potatoes left. They are occupying the space the bananas and other fruit used to.

However, if you are a Spectacled Bat, then the Beach Almond trees out the front of our house are all the sustenance you need. These guys were out very early in the evening (they usually appear after dusk), due to all the rain I think. (sorry the photos are pretty grainy as there wasn’t much light)

There was another one of him having a rather large widdle, but obviously too much in bad taste to post (and blurry!).

So we are still cut off from the rest of the country. I spoke to the Post Office today. No parcels coming IN or OUT of Cairns for the last 2 weeks, and maybe a couple more. Lots of red tape involved – if  the “No Dangerous Goods” sticker is not signed (as for all Road and Rail items), they cannot be loaded on a plane and flown out.

A last note – my heart goes out to all the people and animals involved in the tragic fires down south. It is so so sad, and hopefully the rest of us can chip in and help where we can. Every little bit counts.

Thanks everyone for your kind thoughts. Whilst we’re still cut off by road and rail, at least supplies are getting through. The charted ship from Townsville arrived overnight with 40 sea containers of stock. Supermarket shelves  were being restocked as I was raiding the Chemist’s Darral Lea chocolate stand. Emergency Managment Queensland (who look after disaster management arrangements) have chartered a Qantas 747 full of goodies from Brisbane to arrive in Cairns shortly. Not sure how long the petrol will last though….

Local producers have enjoyed the extra customers.  I should be buying direct from the farmer more often, even if it means going a little out of my way. Things are so much fresher and juicier. Today we bought some dragonfruit and red mangoes for lunch. Everyone’s seen mangoes, so I’ll just show you the luscious dragonfruit:

The colours were amazing, even more so when the last of their insides were scooped out:

    Such hot pinks I’ve never seen in fruit before.

We were even given samples of the fruit dried – just like crunchy cotton candy/fairy floss. I’ll be back for more next weekend for sure!

Another surprise was what was in today’s paper - another of my “Python eating a cockatoo”  shots. It seems to go on and on and on….

Here’s the better quality original:

The constant rain is sending us gifts of frogs and tadpoles everywhere. I had a big tub out the back which filled with water last week. This week it is full of tadpoles (not toadpoles thankfully). I’m pretty sure they are green tree frog tadpoles, although accurate tadpole identification is not one of my strong suits. They are happily munching away on lettuce and other goodies now.

Another froggie (2-D) has surfaced this week also. Whilst cleaning out my portfolio, quite a few illustrations from years ago surfaced (for an school educational DVD). When I painted this little guy, I had never seen a real Green Tree Frog, and thought it was unlikely I ever would. Just goes to show you should never say never!

“Phasmids” – sounds exotic doesn’t it? It harks back to the Greek word meaning apparition or ghost. Pretty accurate for these critters, commonly known as Stick Insects. These guys can sway in the breeze like a twig, brilliantly disguised so that they are virtually invisible. It’s only when they venture onto man-made territority that they magically appear.

Well, until our move to the Tropics, I never realised they existed in such sizes or quantities. See if you can spot a couple of the smaller ones in the photo below:

                        Here’s a closer shot:

                              Then there was Big Mama…

                    …who happily wandered around my desk…

                                            …over my materials….

         …over my painting (that’s one of her many eggs that she laid)…

…making acquaintances along the way.

Time to spread her wings, although she can’t fly with those (which were very impressive when fully spread).

         To finally find a place where she can hang upside down in comfort.

                                A perfect place for me to sketch her!

              Future Phasmids below:

All these guys appeared at our windows in the evening, trying to get inside. I knew our early morning visitor (below) would like a tasty brekkies of Phasmid, so I brought them in for a resort break overnight. All the Eucalyptus they could ”poke a stick at” was supplied.

Poor Kookie waits outside my kitchen window until treats magically appear. She thanked me by shaking off all that water over my face.

This was Jez earlier with another Phasmid friend (from the same house that brought you the enormous Golden Orb Weaver Spider from a couple of posts back – they breed ‘em big in the rainforest).

It’s raining raining raining still. We’re cut off now (at Cardwell), with the rivers bursting their banks and flooding towns like Ingham. Townsville has copped a hammering as well. On the 6 o’clock news tonight they showed a crocodile that had been run over on one of Townsville’s main roads:

Run over croc recovers in Townsville bathroom

A wildlife carer in north Queensland is sharing her bathroom with a 1.6 metre crocodile run over by a car in Townsville early this morning.

Lana Allcroft from North Queensland Wildlife Care says the reptile has a sore eye, some gravel rash and is missing a couple of teeth.

She says the injured croc has not been as snappy as most people would expect.

“We keep a towel over his head to keep the stress level down for him,” she said.

“We had to move him out of the bathroom this morning so we could have a shower and he wasn’t real impressed with that, got a bit feisty.

“Also when we had him in the car bringing him home last night he was a bit upset, but once he’s in a place and his head’s covered he’s fine and he’s nice and calm and quiet.”

The croc will be collected by rangers later today.

Flooding and torrential rain in the north is creating hazards for other wildlife too.

Eleanor Pollock has an injured turtle in her laundry tub.

“He was run over going from one puddle to the other on the side of the road,” she said.

Mrs Pollock says carers are also looking after sodden baby possums separated from their mothers, and tiny birds whose nests have been washed away by the rain.

story courtesy ABC news.

There’s plenty of rain to come yet, and even the return of the cyclone of Thursday.

This was my mountain this morning. Still visible, with low clouds sliding down it’s sides.

The same mountain this evening, obscured by thick curtains of water soaking everything to the core.

The frogs have never been happier!

For those that read the this post earlier, I’ve added an update below the 2nd image.

I was up through the night, and as the rain and wind was so consistent, I kept checking the Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology website radar (love those guys!).

There was a HUGE swirling mass of rainclouds that just kept circling the Cairns region. It never seemed to move offshore/inshore, just around and around. I checked at 2am, 4am, 5am and throughout the early morning (I’m a weather obessive!). It was described as a “vigourous monsoonal tough with a tropical low”. Then right before my eyes, it changed from a low into Cylone Ellie just before 10am.

Images courtesy of the Australian Government Bureau Meterology website.

Looks like she’ll be here soon…

Never a dull moment up here in the VERY wet Tropics!

EVENING UPDATE:

Throughout the day the rain has been falling steadily, but not heavily – yet they are big fat drops that soak you through. It has been so dark today – like Twilight all day. BIG low clouds are forming a dense covering of the sky, obscuring mountains and even the normally very visible plane take offs and landings.

Around 6pm this evening we went to see what the winds had brought down so far. It’s sure going to be one helluva mess tomorrow if today was any indication.

All through the day cyclone warnings have been issued hourly on the telly. Quite a novelty for us first timers:

And with all the water comes the green tree frog that loves the heavy rain. At least this little guy isn’t waiting in ambush in the toilet bowl!