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| Part I: Arrival and
some herping in Ourimbah
and the surrounding area |
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I,
along with my co-author on The Complete Carpet Python
Nick Mutton, was able to visit my good friend Peter
Birch for a few days after speaking
at a symposium in Sydney. Peter was nice enough to
show us around some
local herp spots for a bit of cool weather herping.
Some of the coolest
herps were found cruising Peter's back yard, including
some leaf-tailed
geckos (Phyllurus platurus) and a large land
mullet (Egernia major).
We also located several funnel-web spiders (Atrax
robustus), a juvenile
water skink (Eulamprus quoyii), and a small
unidentified skink, possibly
of the Carlia genus. Pete has left the native
vegitation intact
in his yard, allowing a welcome resort for various
local species. |
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| Peter
and his wife Joanne took us for a drive up into the
hills to search for
more reptiles. After fruitlessly searching for
Angle-headed dragons, we
moved further up the slope and were lucky to flip some
small elapids, a small-eyed
snake (Cryptophis nigrescens) and a swamp snake
(Hemiaspis signata) under some nicely placed
garbage. I guess the bright side of idiots
throwing their junk on the side of the road in a
beautiful setting is that herps can be found
underneath. |
 Eastern Small-Eyed Snake  Eastern Small-Eyed Snake  "Swampy" |
| Unfortunately
it was a bit cool for diamond pythons, but we searched
through some suitable habitat anyway. More leaf-tailed
geckos were found as well as another small-eye and a
crazy-looking flat rock spider (Hemicloea major). |
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We moved on to another prime
herping spot, the local crematorium/graveyard.
Eastern waterdragons (Physignathus
lesuerii) lined the banks of a small stream that
bisected the graveyard.
We also got to play with a large lace monitor (Varanus
varius) that
didn't seemed to be too worried by our presence.
He knew he was the
king of the cemetary! |
   Wanker shot! |
| Page 2,
On to Darwin! |