Birding, Bugs

Sounds of Summer

January 2, 2011 by Clare M 2 Comments

The noisiest bird to visit our garden any time of year is the Grey-crowned Babbler Pomatostomus temporalis and the family group is usually eight birds. They jump around babbling away to each other and turning leaves to look for insects-quite a comical bird to say the least! They love the water that we provide and this one has just had a bath. Children are truly enthralled by this little gang of comedians of the bird world. The Great Bowerbird Chlamydera nuchalis is also very vocal and a great mimic. They throw water all over the place when they come in for a bath!

I will now introduce you to some non-bird sounds that are part of our lives here at the present. With the introduction of a pond to our garden for the birdlife we soon discovered we were encouraging a lot of frogs to also choose our garden as a home. The nicest sounding frog is the small Ornate Burrowing Frog Limnodynastes that just does a “plop” sound. They can lay up to 1500 eggs!

The noisiest frog of all (and least shy as well) is the Green Tree Frog Litoria caerulea. We have several in the garden and they often look in the kitchen window in the evening and sit on our chairs outside. They soon tell us that rain is on it’s way and as soon as it starts to fall we collect water in a couple of large butts, which as you can see they just love!

This is the most beautiful frog we get in our garden, but sadly it is only beautiful for a short period of time…

…it is the Giant Frog Cyclorana australis and is regularly mistaken for a Cane Toad Bufo marinus, a non-native which we don’t have here YET. They can lay eggs in water up to 40c and are good at hiding in your foliage. This is quite an extreme transformation from such a beautiful little frog…

Whilst we were looking for this adult frog we discovered this insect. I am not exactly sure what sort of jewel beetle it is, but it really is a stunner.

Our garden is full of surprises all year round and you never tire from sitting and watching all the bird activity and listening to all the sounds.

Written by Clare M
Clare and her husband, Grant, have lived permanently in Broome, Western Australia since 1999 after living in various outback locations around Western Australia and Darwin. She has lived in the Middle East and the United States and traveled extensively in Europe. She monitors Pied Oystercatchers breeding along a 23km stretch of Broome's coastline by bicycle and on foot. She chooses not to participate in social media, but rather wander off into the bush for peace and tranquility. Thankfully she can write posts in advance and get away from technology!