A Bellingen Diary

This will be my last frog post for a while … not because nothing is happening in the frog pond, but because there is a real danger that I will become known as “that mad frog woman” who spends her evenings crawling around in the dark with a torch in one hand and a camera in the other!!

So, the frog population seems to have stabilised, and they have all taken up a favourite spot … the big Green Tree Frogs love the black bamboo, the Red-Eyes cling to the fronds of the tree ferns, the Dwarf Tree Frogs arrange themselves on the rocks at the edge of the pond, the Striped Marsh Frogs float next to the rocks and that Damned Smooth Toadlet makes himself invisible in the leaf litter.

Meanwhile the ecology of the pond is developing.  As well as damsel flies, there are now water boatmen and assorted tadpoles, as well as four goldfish and several small fry.  The water lettuce is multiplying and the insect-eating bladderwort is flowering.

Several people have asked where I get my frog information … if you have a smart phone you can download the Australian Museum’s Frogs Field Guide app for $1.99. It has photos, sounds, location guides and even a Frog Log where you can record your frog sightings.  And … if you think you’ve identified a frog you can play the sound and if you are correct, the frog will answer back!!

If you don’t have a smart phone you can buy Dave Stewart’s CD Australian Frog Calls – Subtropical East but obviously there no photos, and you have to keep running backwards and forwards between the pond and your sound player.

Frog Fact: Did you know that frogs have selective hearing and only hear the calls of males of their own kind?  Unfortunately, humans can hear them all !!

Well, it’s been a week since the “drought” broke, and the night of the first rain, it was pondemonium. Half an hour after I went to bed I had to get up again to find some earplugs!

Through the racket I thought I heard the call of a Dainty Tree Frog, but due to my precarious position hanging over the edge of the pond in the dark, with camera in one hand and torch in the other, I was only able to take a fuzzy long-distance photo, so this sighting will have to remain un-confirmed.  Not to worry though, the frog count is now up to six with two new arrivals. The Striped Marsh Frog which makes a sound a bit like a tennis ball being struck, and the Bleating Tree Frog which makes a really annoying high pitched bleating sound.

The Common Green Tree frog has attracted a mate (see un-censored photo!!) and the main pond now has a large population of tadpoles.  Although just whose tadpoles they are is anyone’s guess. The Dwarf Tree Frog population has exploded, and at night their calls can be heard coming from every direction.

As I write this, a large storm cell is passing over Bellingen. The rain gauge has just gone over the 30mm mark, the pond level has risen almost to the bottom of the grass, and the night chorus is just getting started ….
So, whose idea was it to wish for rain ???

Footnote: Around midnight the centre of the cell passed overhead, dumping a huge volume of rain in a very short time.  Even the frogs shut up for a while !!