In amongst the soft reed type grass I could hear approximately 150 frogs calling out. It sounded familiar but different from anything I had heard before. I decided to have a good look for the frog. After about 1 hour I had yet to locate one of the frogs, but I saw a frog about 30 mm long out the corner of my eye jumping into the swamp grass. It looked similar in shape to a Tusked Frog. I found a spot where a few of the frogs were calling from so I slowly moved the grass away. The frogs continued to call. but I could not see a frog in the area. So I started to cut the grass off in this small patch level with the ground. I had cleared an area about the size of two dinner plates to ground level. Then the frogs began to call again. I still could not see them. This meant they must be under the ground. After scratching the surface a small amount I found the frogs. I thought they were Tusked Frogs at first, but their call was totally different and their appearance was quite different too. They have been identified as Large Toadlets by someone that I would consider to be an expert in frog identification.
The pictures are not near as good as normal as I had changed the settings a few days before and forgot to change them back. As I was wet and muddy I didn't want to be touching the camera too much so I had to use auto on the camera which doesn't work near as well.
Last night I went back to the spot where the Giant Barred Frogs were found a few weeks ago to look for owls. I was surprised yet again to hear about 4 calling out last night still. Unfortunately I only had my zoom lens with me so I was unable to get any photos of them again.
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| Large Toadlet |
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| Large Toadlets are also known as Major Toadlets |
This is a recording of the Large Toadlets or Major Toadlets calling out in the front paddock of my property.
This will most likely be the last Frog Blog until the rains come after Winter as most frogs have begun to hibernate. If any other frogs are located between now and then I will post them, if not see you in the near future.
Thankyou for taking the time to read my blogs. I hope they have been informative and pleasurable to read and view. I hope you have enjoyed them as much as I have taking the photos and creating them.
Bye for now.
Hi Ashley.
ReplyDeleteI've just stumbled across your blog. Great photos you've got. I'd be interested to know what camera and settings you use. I've got a similar frog blog too, you may have come across it - froggingaround.com/blog. You sure have great frog diversity on your property! I might be slightly jealous :P
Looks like you can add another frog species to your bucket list. The strange Adelotus brevis in your post above is probably a Pseudophryne raveni (Copper-backed Broodfrog), though it's hard to tell with a lot of frogs of that size and various markings/colours.
Look forward to hearing from you. I'm on the Sunshine Coast too.
Thanks mate. Send me an email and I'll get back to you with some of that information. I changed the post above slightly. Thanks for the heads up with the frog identification. I knew something wasn't quite right with the difference in appearance, location and call. I just checked out your blog and I am impressed. I'll have to have a better read when I got some spare time but what I read and saw was great. I added your blog to my Interest List on my blog too to keep a track of your updates.
ReplyDeleteHi Ashley, its Aaron from the frogs.org.au forums. Just catching up on your blog. Some nice pics here. These are actually Pseudophryne major not P. raveni. P. major has the dark lyre-shaped markings on the dorsum and a more distinct orange crown. P. raveni is a more uniform copper-red colour on the dorsum without an obvious crown marking. They also differ in breeding periods with P. major usually breeding in autumn/winter and P. raveni in spring/summer - although they do call year round to complicate things!
ReplyDeleteThanks Aaron!! I do have some nice shots that I am very proud of. I am amazed by the variety and quality of shots that you have on your Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23031163@N03/ I only hope to capture as many and as good a quality as yours. I have seen a Cooper-backed Toadlet on the property before, not long after I arrived and from what I remember, it did appear slightly different from this frog but I just thought it may be a colour variation after someone suggested the species to me. The first one I saw seemed to be a richer cooper/red colour and the colouring was more solid down its back. Thanks heaps for the advice. I am learning heaps about frogs just by watching them here and researching them as I find them ... but I still have a lot to learn yet.
ReplyDeleteNo worries, I enjoy keeping up with your observations. SE Qld is one of the trickiest places for the Pseudophryne because potentially you can have P. coriacea, P. major and P. raveni all at one site (and some sources list P. bibroni as occurring in this area as well but I'm yet to see any proof of that).
ReplyDeleteYou're lucky to have so many frogs close by. I've been working hard this winter mapping the distributions of the local frogs and one species which is surprising me is Paracrinia haswelli which is rarely recorded here - probably due to its preference for calling in winter! I may try and head up to SE Qld before Spring kicks in because I'm keen to photograph the tadpoles of P. major! The Copper-backs are probably there as well, as they overlap in many sites with P. major in SE Qld and their calls are very similar which makes it tricky as well. Perhaps try the same area in the summer after rain and see if you can get the P. raveni calling.