Spider Sniffing

This week I bought a pretty powerful LED headlight with the hopes of getting some night rides on the mountain bike. But then Dan told me that with a powerful flashlight, you can see spiders at night. It's called spider sniffing and it's really cool, it does work !

You just walk around at night with your light mounted as close to your eyes as possible facing forward and when you look down into a field, you'll see the reflection of spider's retinas from really far away, even small ones. Because they have 8 eyes, chances are one of them is pointing your way and you'll see a reflection.

I managed to get a picture of what it looks like to spot one from far away. Click on the pics to see properly.



The big ones are Huntsman Spiders from what I can tell and the smaller ones are burrowing Wolf Spiders. Both very common in Queensland. The ones in these pictures had sizes ranging from 2cm for the little guys up to 10cm leg-span like this one on the fence.


My setup for these shots was my Canon 60mm EF-S macro, plus diffused flash + LED headlight, so the lighting almost looks like daylight, but these were taken in pitch dark.

Notice the two outer eyes on the top row, they're inside a cavity and facing almost completely backwards!

Mmmm, fuzzy !

I'm ready for crocodiles !

... little ones.

You might have already read our big blog posting about our holiday in Port Douglas, but I kept this picture for this blog because it's funny and it fits nicely with my critter theme.

Poor little guy was pretty cold. I guess they have to be to stand still for pictures.

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Wild Bird Feeding

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As you may or may not realize, it's winter here. Which means the reptiles and insects are pretty rare on these cold(ish) days. But the birds don't care, actually they're probably having a harder time finding food by themselves and are happy to fill the critter-picture void created by the "cold" season. (FYI nights are 8degC, days 22degC, harsh :-p )

The parrots we get coming around to our bird feeder are wild. Some don't mind us being outside as I'm sure they're used to the sight of people, but they aren't tame by any stretch. So I'm happy to say that after many weeks of getting closer and closer to them with limited success, we finally earned their trust enough to let us feed them "by hand". Ok, they're not exactly perched on my shoulders or eating out of my hand just yet, but still ... one small step ... and hey, I was really excited to be that close to them.

The feeding line up

A happy cockatoo and a happy gecko hunter!

Clo gets in on the action

Extra trivia: Did you know the Crocodile Hunter was afraid of parrots ? Here's a excerpt from a Larry King interview that explains why:

[Irwin is holding a Macaw parrot and explaining why it's endangered]

KING: I thought you were afraid of parrots.

IRWIN: I am. You might see my head's way back, and I'm shaking like a leaf.

KING: Because?

IRWIN: Have a look at that beak.

KING: Have you been bit by a parrot?

IRWIN: I've had a lot of nasty bites by parrots, and it hurts. I set up a big wildlife hospital at Australia Zoo. In fact, it's the biggest wildlife hospital in Australia. And last month, we had 80 koalas come through and 27 parrots and, I think, 13 of those bit me.



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The right tool for the job

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With all the birds we've been getting at our bird feeder, I was getting frustrated with the quality of my low-end telephoto lens. I was thinking I'll wait until I'm in Toronto again and go shop around for a deal on a Canon 100-400m zoom or something.

Only things is, it'll be a while before I'm back in Canada and the birds are here now, so when I read good things about this new lens, I thought this could be the lens I'm looking for. Well sure enough, the initial reviews are very good and when I saw that I could get it for the same price here as in Canada, I went for it.

Here's my new Sigma Bazooka, it's HUGE!

Sigma 150-500mm F5-6.3 APO DG OS HSM

I'm still getting used to it, it's heavy (2.0kg), but it has image stabilization so hand held is still possible with good light.

Here's a sample shot I took with it. I re-sized it to 1600 pixels on purpose so you can see the detail in the feathers, I'm really happy with this shot. Standard sharpening (40/1/0) was applied after re-size.

ISO400, 1/800, f7.1, 150-500mm @ 450mm

We went back to Lone Pine Koala sanctuary on Sunday so we'll have more pics up soon.

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Always Look Down

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We've been told by a few Australians that you should always look where you walk anytime you're in the bush. In Canada, most of the things to look out for on a hike would be at eye level somewhere on the horizon. Things like bears, elk, squirrels, low branches ...

We went for a bushwalk with Nick from work and his wife Mariana this morning and were reminded why Australians always look where they step: snakes!

Mariana and Clo almost stepped on this snake.

From the look of the raised scales on it, I'd say it's a harmless keelback snake, but some Aussies have said it's a King brown (venomous). Then there's the Rough-scaled snake that kinda looks like a keelback but IS venomous!We didn't exactly piss it off on purpose to find out ...

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When we got back, I saw this moth on the wall above the BBQ (where the geckos usually hang out). It was pretty big, I'd say12-14cm (5") wide. Pretty cool pattern too, classic "fake eyes" looking back at you.

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Leech walk

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This weekend, we went for a hike in the sunshine coast hinterland. It's a very nice place to walk, typical Australian rainforest: lush and beautiful.

Except it's been raining for the last week up there, so it was a little swampy. And no swampy trail would be complete without leeches. No, the leeches here aren't venomous or anything, just annoying. They grab on to you as you brush up against leaves or just climb up your shoes if you stop. No one got bit, though they did make for a funny (paranoid) walking pace for everyone.

Little guy: No one was willing to let the big ones crawl around them for a picture!

Fun fact: Leeches are closely related to earthworms... except leeches have razor-sharp teeth, *growl* hehe

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Clo's birds

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Here's a small picture assortment of different birds around the house. Clo took most of them, she loves the birds here, I also took a few.

One of the trees just behind the house started flowering this week. It's a "Weeping Teatree" (Melaleuca leucadendra) and has thousands of little white bottlebrush blossoms. We noticed the smell, it's pretty strong, not exactly pleasant, but not foul either, a sort of "sweet stink" is the best way I can describe it.

It must actually be sweet because this morning as we were enjoying our sunday morning pancakes, Clo noticed 3-4 rainbow lorikeets chirping and feeding on these flowers.

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Once again, YouTube turns a decent movie into a fuzzy mess,
oh well, you get the idea ... and the sounds!

This next one is pretty funny, while the picture isn't great, if you look closely you'll see a Kookaburra on the lower branch, a Blue faced HoneyEater above and to the left, and also a Noisy Miner right at the top. The Kookaboo captured a mantis or stick insect (probably caught it with its lasers, right ?) and the other birds were trying to make him give it up by poking him from behind. Crazy monkey screaming ensued.



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Clo really likes these guys, they're called Galahs. The reason Clo likes them is you usually see them huddled together 2 by 2 (couples) on power lines in the morning. They mate for life and they always stay together. Clo spotted these two feeding on clover in the park one afternoon. I think they look like a cross between a pigeon and a parrot. :-D




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