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| Sunday, 10-Jun-2007 21:58 |
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Full Moon
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Venue: Brisbane, QLD
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| Thursday, 17-May-2007 05:20 |
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The Eastern Whipbird
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venue: Lammington National Park, Queensland
The Eastern Whipbird
(extracted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
The Eastern Whipbird (Psophodes olivaceus) inhabits the east coast of Australia. It is olive green with a black head and a white patch on its face.
The whip bird is usually shy, and is heard much more often than seen. Its long drawn out call - a long note, followed by a "whip crack" (which is the source of their name) and some follow on notes - is one of the most distinctive sounds of the eastern Australian wet temperate forest.
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| Wednesday, 16-May-2007 02:48 |
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Caught in the Act
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This possum is stealing bird food we put out for...yeah..birds...
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| Monday, 14-May-2007 03:20 |
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Eastern Yellow Robin
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venue: Lamington National Park, Queensland
Eastern Yellow Robin
(extracted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
The Eastern Yellow Robin (Eopsaltria australis) is an Australasian robin of coastal and sub-coastal eastern Australia. The extent of the Eastern Yellow Robin's residence is from the extreme southeast corner of South Australia through most of Victoria and the western half of New South Wales and north as far as Cooktown. Tropical Northern Queensland birds are mainly restricted to the cool heights of the Great Dividing Range.
The Eastern Yellow Robin occupies a wide range of habitats: heaths, mallee, acacia scrub, woodlands and sclerophyll forests, but is most often found in damper places or near water.
At 15 to 16cm in length, the Eastern Yellow Robin is one of the larger Australasian robins, and one of the most easily observed. Pairs and small family parties establish a territory—sometimes year-round, sometimes for a season—and seem little disturbed by human presence. They appear not to migrate any great distance, but will make local movements with the seasons, particularly to higher and lower ground.
Like all Australian robins, the Eastern Yellow tends to inhabit fairly dark, shaded locations and is a perch and pounce hunter, typically from a tree trunk, wire, or low branch. Their diet is a wide range of small creatures, mostly insects. Breeding takes place in the spring and, as with many Australian birds, is often communal. The nest is a neat cup made of fine plant material and spider web, usually placed in a fork, and expertly disguised with lichen, moss, bark, or leaves.
Note: Some pictures from Lamington National Park are courtesy of Franky.
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| Friday, 11-May-2007 03:58 |
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Alpaca
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Venue: Alpaca Barn & Rainforest Gallery, Lamington National Park
Alpaca
(extracted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
The Alpaca (Vicugna pacos) is a domesticated species of South American camelid developed from the wild alpacas. It resembles a sheep in appearance, but is larger and has a long erect neck as well as coming in many colors, whereas sheep are generally bred to be white.
Alpacas are kept in herds that graze on the level heights of the Andes of Ecuador, southern Peru, northern Bolivia, and northern Chile at an altitude of 3500 to 5000 meters above sea-level, throughout the year. Alpacas are considerably smaller than llamas, and unlike them are not used as beasts of burden but are valued only for their fiber. Alpacas only have fleece fibers, not woolen fibers, used for making knitted and woven items much as sheeps wool is. These items include: blankets, sweaters, hats, gloves, scarves, a wide variety of textiles and ponchos in South America, and sweaters, socks and coats in other parts of the world. The fiber comes in more than 52 natural colors as classified in Peru, 12 as classified in Australia and 22 as classified in America. Alpacas and llamas differ in that llamas have banana shaped ears and long tails and alpacas have straight ears and stubby tails. Aside from these differences, llamas in general are on average 1-2 feet taller, and bigger in proportion than alpacas.
In the textile industry, "alpaca" primarily refers to the hair of Peruvian alpaca, but more broadly it refers to a style of fabric originally made from alpaca hair but now often made from similar fibers, such as mohair, Icelandic sheep wool, or even high-quality English wool. In trade, distinctions are made between alpacas and the several styles of mohair and luster.
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| Thursday, 10-May-2007 06:43 |
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Fungi
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Venue: Lamington National Park (Phyton Track), Queensland.
Testing my new macro lens (and my macro skill) on some fungi.
Little fact on fungi:
(extracted from http://lamington.nrsm.uq.edu.au/Documents/Plant/fungi.htm)
Fungi help to recycle fallen timber and organic debris. If it were not for the important role played by fungi, the diversity of understorey plants species would be greatly reduced. Fungi also return nitrogen from the air into the soil so that other plants are able to benefit. Keep your eyes on the ground if you want to see some of the diverse types of fungi found in Lamington National Park.
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| Wednesday, 9-May-2007 06:17 |
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Red-Eyed Green Tree Frog
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Venue: O'Reilly's Guesthouse, Lamington National Park, Queensland
Litoria Chloris
Extracted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Commonly known as the Red-eyed Tree Frog is a species of tree frog native to eastern Australia; ranging from north of Sydney to Proserpine in mid-northern Queensland.
Physical description
The Red-eyed Tree Frog is a uniform bright green above and bright yellow on the underside. The front side of the arms and legs are green, while the underside is yellow or white. The thighs may be blue/purple to blue/black in colur in adults. It has golden eyes at the centre, which change to red towards the edge of the eye. The intensity of the eye colour is variable between frogs. The tympanum is visible and a mature frog reaches a size of 65 millimetres.
In rare cases this frog may have a series of randomly placed yellow dots on its back. The tadpoles are generally grey or brown, and can have gold pigment along the side. A similar species, the Orange-thighed Frog (Litoria xantheroma) is found north of Proserpine and has orange on the back of the thighs.
Ecology and behaviour
This species of frog is associated with rainforest, wet sclerophyll forest and woodland. The call is several long, moaning "aaa-rk", followed by soft trills. Males call and breeding takes place mostly after rain in temporary ponds, roadside ditches, dams, ponds and creek offshoots were the water is not flowing.
The skin secretions of the red-eyed tree frog have been found to destroy the HIV (the virus that causes AIDS), without harming healthy T-cells. The peptides which destroy HIV are the same as those of White's Tree Frog, but the Red-eyed Tree Frog produces it in larger quantites.
Note: Some pictures from Lamington National Park are courtesy of Franky.
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| Tuesday, 8-May-2007 04:01 |
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Room With a View
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Sunset view of McPherson Range from O'Reilly's Guesthouse at Lamington National Park, Queensland.
Info:
McPherson Range
source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The McPherson Range is an extensive mountain range, a spur of the Great Dividing Range, heading in an easterly direction from near Wallangarra to the Pacific Ocean coatline. It forms part of the Scenic Rim on the border between the states of New South Wales and Queensland. Wilson's Peak is considered to be the intersection of the Great Divide and the McPherson Range.
The range is an area of significant scenic beauty and contains a multitude of National Parks, including Mount Barney National Park, Border Ranges National Park and Lamington National Park among many others, many of which possess World Heritage area listing.
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| Thursday, 26-Apr-2007 02:26 |
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Gollum & Koko
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Gollum
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Koko
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Gollum & Koko
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These are old picture of my 2 cats.
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| Tuesday, 24-Apr-2007 06:59 |
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Kookaburra
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A Little fact about Kookaburra. (from wikipedia)
Kookaburras are very large terrestrial kingfishers native to Australia and New Guinea, the name a loanword from Wiradjuri guuguubarra, which is onomatopoeic of its call.
Kookaburras are best known for their unmistakable call, which is uncannily like loud, echoing human laughter — good-natured, if rather hysterical, merriment in the case of the well-known Laughing Kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae); and maniacal cackling in the case of the slightly smaller Blue-winged Kookaburra (Dacelo leachii).
Venue: Mt. Nebo, Brisbane
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