Snakes, Surf, and Sharks

January was a cool month! Well, not temperature wise at least. Saw a lot of native fauna to start off 2010. To start, I went out spotlighting with some friends. Essentially, we go around with heavy flashlights spotting animals at night. I got to see a greater glider, ringtail possum, swamp wallabies, tawny frog-mouths, rock geckos, plenty of cane toads, and massive orb spiders. Here is a picture from Jeremy of the glider, taken with his pretty high-tech camera gear:

A few weeks later, I got to follow Jeremy and some mates through the forest near Mount Glorious, just 45-60 mins North of Brisbane. I saw some massive tree frogs, a plethora of small pond-dwelling frogs, ugly cane toads again, small golden crowned snake (slightly venemous), three carpet pythons including a 3.3+ meter one (massive!!), a Subtropical Antechinus which is a carnivorous marsupial mouse-like animal (read the link for some funny facts about them), and a melomys (indigenous arboreal rodent). We also got to see a lessor sooty owl, even snapping a fairly decent picture of it which, apparently, is quite rare. Our friend Stewart got bitten by this 2m python while helping it across the road:

Last weekend, we went to Stradbroke Island with some friends where we rented a beach house for 4 days. What a great time we had! the weather was typical, hot and sunny, not a cloud in sight, and the beach was amazing. Crystal clear 24˚ blue water, clean surf that wasn't too big but enough to short-board with. We had an adult grey kangaroo graze on the front lawn one night. Went snorkeling in the North gorge twice, where I saw some cornetfish and really large sea hare for the first time.

On the walk back one night, we saw a group of eagle rays swimming and jumping near the rocky shores. Then a large leopard shark cruised by slowly (my first shark sighting!). I then saw a large shadow swimming pretty fast, which turned out to be a 3+ meter shark, probably a lemon, tiger, or great white shark. It spooked the kids that were fishing nearby as it surfaced about 20 meters away from them.

The next day, during an awesome surfing session, the surf rescue blokes showed up on a jet ski, yelling at the surfers to watch out for a shark and get out of the water. Seconds latter, I saw a fast-moving shadow in a wave, it swam around frantically as many surfers panicked out of the water. One of which was Esteban, our friend from Mexico on his longboard. The shark swam about 20 meters towards him in a few seconds, then decided to turn away about 4-5 meters from him and buggered off! Esteban didn't see anything, but I sure did. The bronze whaler shark was at least 2 meters long.

The previous day, Tim had spotted a leopard shark going about his business near him during a surfing session. On weekends and busy days, the surf rescue patrols beaches with helicopters, looking for sharks and strayed surfers. If they spot any near popular beaches, they circle around the area to signal the crew of life-savers on the beach. Then, a jet ski patrol goes out and tries to scare the sharks away. They also have large baited hooks that hang off floating plastic drums offshore, which attempt to snag the larger sharks. This seems a little bizarre as the sharks are there anyhow and the meat probably just attracts more. Just watch this story of a 3 meter great white getting bitten in half by a monster shark last october, right off the spot where we were surfing: