This week’s creatures – 24 March 2023 – random urban craziness

It’s been a pretty crazy week – here are some of the more unusual sights.

Bin chicken! In the running for the official 2023 Olympics mascot!
A white Ibis bird from Brisbane
The Bin Chicken!
netcasting spider
The netcasting spider has amazing eyes – it needs them to aim its net web at flying insects during the night
Cyclone Gabrielle forecast map
The weather forecast for Norfolk Island was pretty scary. It ended up being OK for Norfolk, but very wet for New Zealand. (My father’s house is two pixels below the bottom of the nearest arrow. The wind dropped at midnight… momentarily.)
Camera trials at Woolworths
This is a concern – Woolworths is now recording each customer and their purchases, via photo identification. This notice is very ambiguous.
Woolworths cybersecurity concerns
And this is why the camera technology is concerning! Woolworths publishes its passwords with label printers… on the monitor that each customer shuffles past to get to the checkouts. This isn’t a good look for a company that may now be using artificial intelligence for customer profiling.

Sample post on facebook

garden lizards

Awesome news – this post was actually published on wordpress (via CMS entry) and has now magically appeared on Facebook.

What a marvellous toolbox of goodies! (Also: testing image reposting.)

Lizards are the feature image.

It’s important that the lizards make an appearance too.

This week’s creatures – 30 November 2020 – Baby Currawongs, Koalas, Dragonfly

Baby currawong sitting on irrigation pipe

There’s been a lot going on at the moment, both animal-wise, and project-wise. It’s been difficult to pin down a time to look at the shots!

  • There was an enormous dragonfly sitting on a tree trunk in the yard, waiting for me to get a shot
  • We have had a baby currawong bird (similar to a magpie, but less aggressive) end up in the yard, and it can’t fly. We’ve been giving it water and making sure it’s got shade during the day, and its folks are feeding it.
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This week’s creatures: June 10 2020 – “Return to the Deep” wins a prize

A green turtle descends from the surface at Manta Bommie, Stradbroke Island

I recently entered the Queensland Conservation Council‘s annual Natural Wonders Photography competition, and won the category for Native Plants and Wildlife. I took this photo of a green turtle descending from the sea surface at Manta Bommie on Stradbroke Island – and both myself and the turtle feel very honoured to be awarded this prize.

The judges stated:

A dazzling image of a veteran sea turtle diving to the depths. The composition is perfect with the sun beaming from above and space around the image to gauge scale. The barnacles add context to the age of the turtle. An extremely strong image. Well done.

A green turtle descends from the surface at Manta Bommie, Stradbroke Island
This photo of an old, barnacle-encrusted green turtle descending from the sea surface won the Native Plants and Wildlife category of the Queensland Conservation Council’s Natural Wonders Photography Awards for 2020

The following two photos are my other entries for the competition. For the Landscape category, I sent this photo of a full moon sinking behind the Great Dividing Range from the Scenic Rim in South-east Queensland:

 

The Moon From Mount Maroon
This photo of the full moon setting behind the Great Dividing Range at the Scenic Rim was an entrant in the Queensland Conservation Council’s Landscape awards

For another entry to the Native Plants and Wildlife category, I submitted “You Shall Not Pass”, a photo of two huntsman spiders preparing to do battle (or worse,) on a tree branch on Mount Cootha. This is my favourite of the photos as it is technically better than the others, but is probably a little more difficult to sell to tourists.

Two spiders prepare to do battle on a tree branch
You Shall Not Pass! This photo was an entrant in the Queensland Conservation Council’s Nature Wonders Photography Competition in 2020

Here are some other photos of creatures that we have seen around Brisbane in the last week.

A McDowell's Python is wrapped around a tree trunk
Snake Ball! This is a McDowell’s Python wrapped around a tree trunk on Mount Cootha, fast asleep in the afternoon sun. Its head is tucked under the folds of its body.

Pair of tawny frogmouth nightjars asleep on a branch in the afternoon sun
This pair of tawny frogmouth nightjar birds are fast asleep in the afternoon sun.

Pair of tawny frogmouth nightjars asleep on a branch in the afternoon sun
This pair of tawny frogmouth nightjar birds are fast asleep in the afternoon sun.

Huntsman spider hanging off a grass thread
This huntsman spider was hanging off a grass thread in the garden

This week’s creatures: 30 March 2020 – Barking owl, powerful owl, kookaburras!

Dragonfly on wall

A bit of rain coming though Brisbane has brought a lot of insect life out into the forest. The current restrictions on public events have made it difficult to organise dive trips and group walks in the evenings but we have been lucky to get out and see some of the forest friends.

The echidna was digging around looking for ants and was undisturbed by the people – must have been hungry. The dragonfly and owls have been brought out by the heavy rain. The powerful owl was watching us very closely for a potential meal… have to be very careful when walking around in the forest given current circumstances!

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