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| Part III: Green Gold in
Iron Range National
Park |
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After
observing the turtles, it started to rain, so we
headed back to
camp. On the way back, Michael showed us a DOR Varanus keithhorni
that he had seen
on the previous day. What a tragedy to see such
a cool varanid
that way. Iron Range is one of the few places to
see these
monitors, so I hoped to get a view of a live one
during the trip.
At Portland Roads, we took a quick power nap in
anticipation of more
searching for the endemic herps that evening. As everyone prepared to leave, Michael told us about the smugglers tree, which was used back in the day by nefarious individuals to illegally collect rare parrots from the park. The plan was to head out to the smugglers tree to check it out before the evenings road cruising. On the way there, our vehicle decided to slow down a bit and look out the windows for green tree pythons (Morelia viridis) as we drove through the park. Sure enough, I was lucky enough to spot a green out my window! It was magnificent! This snake almost glowed in the dark it was so vibrant. This individual had an almost perfect stripe of white scales down the dorsum. It was not very large, probably under 3 feet long, and was fairly thin. There were also several skin worm cysts just under the skin on the latter third of the snake, an apparent result of a frog heavy diet. There was a profound silence among the group, broken only by the sound of snapping cameras, as if we were walking on hallowed ground just looking at this amazing animal. What an amazing animal! |
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After
such an incredible find, we were hungry for
more. We
scanned further up the road to see if we could press
our luck, but to
no avail. We did spot a couple more interesting
species along the
road, including a gigantic white-lipped tree frog (Litoria infrafrenata),
a Furnia tristis,
and another spotted
python (A. maculosa). |
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After
returning back to the beachhouse, we got a little
slack from the
others for ditching them at the smugglers tree to go
herping.
Their anger was alleviated a bit when we told them
what we found and
took them there the following morning. The
little python was
making it's way up the tree for the daily roost in the
tops of the
branches. We got some great shots in the early
morning
light. Not much better than finding a GTP in
Iron Range! Driving along the road through the eucalypt forest Allen spotted a large lizard, which ran into the forest ducking into the leaf litter. Upon closer inspection, a patch of moving leaves revealed a large Major skink (Egernia frerei). He didn't want to pose for pictures very much, and we had to uncover him just to get some photos. |
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We
turned up a Macleay's water snake (Enhydris
polylepis), which we attempted to
photograph. This was
difficult as the snake continually wanted to bury
itself in the
underwater leaves. I wonder if the skink and the
water snake
subscribe to the same newsletter? I got a couple
OK shots of the
snake. While trying to maneuver the snake for
photos,
I got a little nip on the finger. |
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I
took a little walk along the road with dad and Rico to
see what we
could see in the afternoon. As we walked along,
I heard a
rustling on the side of the road. I ducked into
the forest just
in time to see a canopy goanna (Varanus keithhorni)
quickly ascending a
large tree. The others came running when they
heard my excited
exclamations of "keithhorni!" I had to circle the tree
to see him as
he tried to stay out of view. As he got up in
the higher
branches, he was clearly visible, but out of range for
descent
pictures. It was a thrill just to be able to see
such a cool
monitor lizard! Pictured below is a close-up of
the DOR we saw
the day earlier, which illustrates the cool scalation
of these
varanids, which is very similar to the black tree
monitor (Varanus
becarri). |
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We
decided to go check out Chili beach before dark and
along the way
spotted another varanid, an argus monitor (Varanus panoptes).
It was
content to sit on the side of the road and let us
photograph it as long
as we stayed in the car. As soon as the car door
opened, however,
the monitor was gone as quick as a flash into the
forest. |
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Chili
beach was pretty sweet, despite the trash that was all
over.
Some very large trees had been blown over by the wind,
and were still
alive with their huge root tangle up in the air.
We decided to
take a nice group shot. We also got a group shot
in the forest of
Iron Range. It was a great group of guys and we
got along very
well. L to Rt: RobRoy, Dave, Rico, Justin (me),
Allen, Jason,
Michael, and below is Dave. Not pictured in the
top pic, but
present in the bottom pic is my awesome dad. |
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The
evenings herping found us searching again for green
trees along the
road through the sections of rain forest. Dad,
Rico, Dave, and I
decided to walk instead of looking from the car so we
could duck into
the forest to search through promising sections of
forest. While
looking intently into the forest, I almost stepped on
a small dark
snake that looked suspiciously like a coastal taipan (Oxyuranus scutellatus).
Thanks,
Dave! Well, our searching paid off again, as
another
green tree python (Morelia
viridis)
was found! This individual was not in as good of
shape as the
first one and looked like it was in desperate need of
a meal. It
had a lot of nice blue on the sides and it's skin was
quite
wrinkled. Regardless, we found a second green
tree! |
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After
finding the GTP, we were once again, driven by
adrenaline to
continue herping into the night. We walked
further up the road
and to the old bomb site clearing to look for some Liasis
pythons. We found
another Boiga
irregularis,
but the search for water pythons was fruitless.
After finding a
second green tree python, we felt that our luck had
been spent, and we
decided to travel down to the Tablelands for some
herping in that area. |
| Page 4,
More Time in
the Tablelands |