Okay, the photo tank is a bit lower than I’d like, so all you temporizing readers with good photos, please send them along.
Today we feature the photos of Tony Eales from Australia, who took these photos on holiday in Tasmania. His notes are indented:
Just came back from a holiday in the Island state of Tasmania. Apart from the great culinary and cultural highlights, there’s much in Tasmania to see wildlife-wise. Unfortunately, I did not see a Devil and the only live wombat (Vombatus ursinus tasmaniensis) that I saw was a rescued orphan found in the pouch of his mother who had been hit by a truck.
Common in all environments were the Bennett’s Wallabies (Macropus rufogriseus rufogriseus) but they looked especially good in the snow fields of Ben Lomond. While it was too early for heavy snow, the landscape was interesting with all of the dense low shrubs and lichens growing on the rocks.
We also went to Russell Falls in Mt Field National Park: a good example of the tree-fern dominated rainforests of western Tasmania. I photographed lots of fungi and lichens, a couple of which I got identified by the good people on the Fungi of Tasmania Facebook page.
Mycena austrororida [now known as Roridomyces austrororidus, the Australian dripping bonnet]:
Unidentified:
Unidentifid lichen 1
Unidentified lichen(s) 2:
Being in the depths of winter, finding insects to photograph was pretty difficult, but hunting through some rotting logs in a pine plantation, I came across some cool invertebrates including this Darkling Beetle and this plump spider, a member of the genus Tasmarubrius from a little-known Gondwanan family called the Forest Hunters:
As this was really my wife’s holiday to see the terrific Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) gallery, I didn’t get as much bird watching in as I’d have liked, but I did see the flightless Tasmanian Native Hen (Tribonyx mortierii) and the Yellow-throated Honeyeater (Nesoptilotis flavicollis). Perhaps surprisingly for a flightless island endemic, the Native Hen population appeared to be booming and they were common in most grassy parks near water. Other Tasmanian endemic birds that I saw but failed to photograph (or photographed poorly) were the Black Currawong, the Green Rosella, Yellow Wattlebird and Tasmanian Scrubwren.
Tasmanian native hen:
Yellow-throated honeyeater:
So many of these photographs are so beautiful. These are my favorite posts.
What an amazing place. I’d love to visit.
The Wallaby’s shrubby environment is especially interesting – the earth tones are very cool.
Impressive spider pic – I’m relived to discover that beastie is perhaps only 8 mm long! Does it take a lot of kit to capture such small scale detail in a gloomy environment Tony?
The waterfall pic is beautiful – most colourful
relieved
Sorry to tell you this guy was more like 30mm long not including legs 🙂
Aaagh!But the link said 6 to 8 mm for that group of creepy crawlies. Gives me an itch i can’t scratch thinking about large spiders – little ones around the house are good, but the rest not so much.
Great pics anyway.
Wondering the same thing. I have a decent film camera that can capture detail better than most. Haven’t used it in a while. I usually end up trying to capture small things like this with my iphone and don’t get this stunning detail.
There are various simple ways you can mofify a decent point and shoot or an slr or comparable mirrorless camera to take close up pictures. The most convenient way by far can be done if your camera has a threaded mount on the lens for a lens filter. If so, then you can afix what is known as a Raynox lens onto the end of the camera lens. This booster lens is of good quality, and it will let you take that spider picture. I use a Raynox 150 all the time. You can also use the more powerful Raynox 250.
@Mark Thanks. I looked up the Raynox 150 & it looks very nifty.
Unfortunately I’m threadless so I’ll look see what’s available for my Panasonic Lumix DMC-SZ7 now I have the idea. Perhaps there’s a snap on lens.
Yeah I now use a Raynox 150 but then I was using extension tubes. I want to get a 250 soon
You might want to play around with a magnifying glass. They work crudely but won’t have the sharpness and contrast of something you have to pay for.
Thanks for this and the lens information.
What wonderful photographs! Tasmania is now on my bucket list, especially after seeing the wombat. I’d love to hold him.
It looks like a beautiful place.
Thank you for the pictures.
What lovely pictures. I especially liked the lichen and fungi photos, and I’m impressed you actually got some of them identified. That’s got to be really hard.
Fabulous photos Tony. I was in Australia last October for a month near Melbourne studying fairy-wrens. Your photos make me ‘home sick’ for Australia.
I have some pictures I can send in if needed. I didn’t see where to send them. If anyone knows how to I will send along. Some are pretty good and a few others might just be decent.
Hi Liz
Normally you can click the “Research Interests” link [top right this page] & JAC’s uni email address is there, but today I can’t connect to his uni page via the link nor directly.
So put the below in Google search & the top result shows the email [look in the top result returned by Google – don’t click on the result]
“jerry a coyne” pondside email
Okay. Awesome. Thank you. Do you know if it is supposed to be j-coyne or jcoyne? Also, I have two good pictures of dead birds. So I don’t know if it’s just supposed to be alive pictures. I just came across them when I was walking so took the pics. Most are alive.
The first of the two
I’m intrigued by your dead birds – I suppose you could let JAC see & he can decide 🙂
Thank you!
I’m looking forward to dead birds. Be sure to describe the circumstances of finding them.
There’s not too much to describe. I walk a lot and found both while walking.
Is the mushroom one of the Amanita family?
Great photos. Most of them share a pleasing reddish-brownish palette.
Great photos and interesting, thanks. Wombats look like a bit of fun.