That first one's some kind of night jar - is it a Frogmouth? Great pictures!

What are the red Neos and Bills in the first snake picture? They're gorgeous, nice reds. Don't know what that snake is though. Is the parrot a Lorikeet? (do you call them Lories, or Lorikeets?)

Mike

Kerry,
Great photos !
Thanks,
Bob

Great photos! I'm jealous you have such cool visitors.

I guess I'll add to the previous IDs. The funky lizard is an Australian Water Dragon.

Kerry,
Wow- looks like we wouldn't need to visit the Qld zoo if we come to your place! The photos of the owls are awesome. We never managed to catch a Skippy in the wild when we were in Aust many years ago. What is that green creature peeping out of that silver bilbergia- is it a frog or a snake? The most we get here are a few frogs and the odd parrot.

I was going to say tawny frogmouth on the first one too. I see three together and one to the right of them, but is that another directly above the three, or is that just a branch stump? Great camouflage!

I recognize the lorikeet and the wallaby, but the rest I don't know. Except, of course, for the Homunculus domesticus var. gluteus maximus nudus....

Is that a White's Treefrog?

Yealous....

Sander

Great neighbour creatures !

Beautiful...all the plants and critters!

I know them all but the snake, I'll have to get out my copy of Reptiles and Amphibians of Austrailia and look it up. I've kept and bred both Whites tree frogs, and the Water Dragon, along with a few of the dwarf monitors and the bearded dragon. I had some velvet geckos and some other geckos from there.

I used to have to bottle feed a baby Wallaby, I got kicked more than once in a place where it hurt a lot. I would stay away from them.

Dear all,
Thanks for all the responses - and aren't you a bunch of 'clever dicks'! Sorry to take a while to answer - been busy.

O.K. The first photos do feature Tawny Frogmouths, often mistaken for owls. And first prize to Lisa for seeing 5 of them. Yes, that is another one stretched out, in the guise of a stump, above its 3 kids.

The next 2 photos (in Billbergia brasiliensis) feature a tree frog, but I didn't know which specific one. White's Treefrog says Florida Mike and Bambi John - they seem to know their creatures, so I'll change my name tag....

I also don't know which particular small tree snake that is in the next few pics. I'll be keen to know if you can identify it from your books, Bambi John.
Treehaus Mike - those red broms are Neo.Fireball variegated on left, and Billbergia 'Ellen' on right. They are growing in very bright light, and 'hard', hence their compact shape and intense colour. I use Neo. Fireball as a light metre around the garden - the redder they become, the brighter the light. That variegated form loses its stripes in such bright light.

The next photo is, as you guessed, a lorikeet - the Rainbow Lorikeet. People usually call them the Rainbow Parrot, or Rainbow 'Keet'.

The funky lizard is an Australian water dragon - the Eastern Water Dragon - and a male, as can be seen by its reddish chest.

And the last photos feature a wallaby - but I don't know which one.
Lisa, I belly-laughed at your Latin i.d. of the big-arsed gnome! He reminds me of some typical brown-eyeing yobos which we seem to breed in Oz.

J+A, when you visit here, we'd be lucky to catch a 'Skippy' in the garden. They rarely come into the garden from surrounding paddocks/grazing land - so I was glad I had film in my (old) camera when he visited. It intrigues me that Oz has so much more native wildlife than N.Z. I don't think St Patrick made it to your fair land to abolish all snakes - or maybe he sent them to us?? Did the original Kiwis hunt and eat them all? I understand your volcanic land mass is younger than ours, with Oz being once part of Gondwanaland. But we share the same destructive introduced fauna, (no) thanks to the Brits.

Wow, Bambi John - my hubby and I are impressed with your knowledge and experience with our native fauna in Ohio - and to breed them too!
We couldn't get close enough to a wild wallaby or kangaroo to worry about injury to the testimonials or elsewhere!

One of my favourite native creatures which inhabit our large creek on the boundary of our 17 acres is the dear little platypus. They share our favourite private swimming hole, and on dusk in Summer, it is the best place to show them off to our 'city-slicker' relatives. Thank you Mother Nature - you are my 'God'.

Cheers,
Kerry

And Platypus too...... sob...

That is just about the best spot on earth you could pick to put your house on.

But I bet you don't have city busses whizzing by 150 times every day! A realy good thing if you are into busses. :-)

Sander

OMG platypus- I've always wanted to see them in the wild. Now I feel like a real city slicker- I was in Melb for 7 impressionable student years & have never seen one, except in the zoo & then only fleetingly as they are so shy but they fascinate me. Your place sounds like bliss - 17 acres will take a lot of broms!

If you'll not careful, we'll all set out camp & retire there! :>, Agatha

I still keep and breed reptiles and amphibiams. I have 3 subspecies of the carpet pythons right now, and a few of the Blue form of the whites tree frogs. I think I enjoyed the water dragons most, but mine were very tame, and a joy to work with. The dwarf monitors were fun and very profitable for awhile, but the frogs are really too much work. That is a tree snake I think, but not one I am familar with, its probably rear fanged, be careful, while they are not usually deadly, it can really make you sick. I got bit by a green vine snake from Vietnam once it got me right between the fingers, and my hand was swollen for 3 weeks. Try explaining that at a hospital.

I had a rainbow Lorie for awhile, but he was way to noisy, and being nector feeders too messy, a few months after I was married I was forced to trade him for a Blue fronted Amazon Parrot which I still have, she, just turned 26 years old, and by some miracle, I'm still Married to the same wonderful understanding woman.

I worked for a place that wholesaled Fish, Reptiles, Birds, and small animals. The Wallaby was supposed to be weaned, but showed up with formula we took turns carrying it around in a snugly, which are made for carring human babies, it worked out ok until you took it out or tried to put it back in. It really was a neat animal, but I'd never own one. Ok trust me, it hurts when even the little ones kick you.

Your country has always intrigued me, if I ever run away from home that is probably where I'll end up. I'd come visit, but a month would not be enough. I'd have to see al of it! I still want to see Mulloch in the wild, which is the only place to see them.

Be careful swimming with the platypus, and don't play with the blue ringed octopus, those things always made me nervous.

Hi Kerry,
while I do not know anything about snakes, I am convinced that there is an answer for any question on internet. What would you think about this? Green tree snake
http://calphotos.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?stat=BROWSE&query_src=photos_fauna_sci-Reptile&where-lifeform=Reptile&where-taxon=Dendrelaphis+punctulata

I am jealous of your wildlife too, beautiful animals. I live on fourth floor, so I only enjoy geckoes (I really do), blackbirds and pidgeons (bleah!)
Tomas

That's spot on Tomas.

I looked them up in my reptile enyclopedia.
They eat frogs and lizzards and they have no poison.

Sander

Thats what the snake is, I finally pulled my encyclopedia out and checked. It is not listed as rear fanged, but I'll bet it bites readliy. The photo shows it in a defensive behavior that a lot of Asian rat snakes use, it puffs up its throat region much the way some venomous snakes do, which means basically "go ahead, make my day".

Gardening must be an adventure Kerry, considering you Aussies have what, 8 of the top 10 deadliest creatures on Earth (land and sea). I'd be VERY careful sticking my paws in any plant, anywhere! Beautiful photos, thanks!

Gee thanks everyone for your efforts in identifying my tree snake.
And yep! - that's him alright - so he's the Green Tree Snake. Was a bit worried about the rear-fanged warning Bambi John, as I'd always thought him harmless - but I did suspect he was after the frogs in my broms, the greedy thing. Leave my frogs alone! However, sorry frogs, I'd rather he bite the frogs than me, so I'll be wary with my close-up photography in future John.

Tomas, I'd swap your pidgeons for our crows (and lethal brown snakes and funnelweb spiders) any day! Geckos are dear creatures.

Sander - you win the bet, we don't have 150 buses going past each day LOL Hope you do really like them! Actually we do have 1 school bus go by each week day (with about 5 kids on it), and about once a week we get a small busload of tourists, mostly Japanese, or European hippies, go by on their way to a nearby waterfall and rainforest national park. Our joke on them is a life-like-but-concrete kangaroo, complete with joey in pouch, positioned on a grassy hill in our front paddock. The tourist bus driver enjoys and shares the joke, so when a passenger calls out "There's a kangaroo!!!", he squeals on the brakes, they all pile out, and snap away with their cameras, then excitedly pile back into the bus, and off they go again. We watch this from our front verandah with great amusement. To this day, our concrete kangaroo probably features in many photo albums, believed to be the real thing! LOL

Bambi John, that's certainly an interesting passion and job you have with all those birds, animals, and reptiles. Thanks for sharing that with us. I really enjoyed reading about it. And lovely to hear of such a happy long-term union with your understanding wife. Most people remember the length of their marriage by the age of their kids, not their Amazonian parrots! The platypus is not as timid as generally believed, and I'm sure they are of no threat to humans. But sadly the occasional fox is a threat to the platypus. And no blue-ringed octopus here either as you'd realise. We are inland, and our creek is fresh water. I hope your dream comes true one day of coming to our huge and diverse land - there is always a bed here for any gardenwebbers.

And Gonzer, yes our land (and sea) is full of deadly creatures, so gardening is certainly an adventure - especially here in "the bush". But I reckon there are heaps more deaths and injuries from traffic accidents in the urban-jungle, don't you?

Cheers,
Kerry

I suppose you have Rainbow fish and yabbies in your swimming hole too! I have enjoyed many species of Melanotaenia over the years. I had some Trifasciata from the Goyder River population that lived 12 years. Yes I have been fortunate, to be able to work in an industry I enjoy, and in love as well. I never looked at it quite that way, but as a way to remember how old my parrot was. My wife is a Saint! So is my Mom who never knew what to expect me to bring home next, I can still remember her finding the spider collection in my closet. I had jars of them lined up on the shelves behind where the clothes hung, that was a very short lived hobby.

You have funnel web spiders around you, those from what I have heard and see on TV have a pretty bad bite, and the brown snakes we al know about them.

I thought I impressed a couple of tourists who came to my house and we picked grapefruit and a coconut but that was nothing compared to a wallabye and a platypus. WOW.
I have to work harder on my husband to take a trip there!!Snakes and birds are ok too.

LOL on the concrete roo, Kerry! I used to work in a tourist park, so I can appreciate that. They probably wouldn't even care if they knew the truth, as long as it looked real in the photo!

One of my favorite questions was "when is the rain going to stop?" I would generally look at my watch and say "in about 28 and a half minutes", at which point I would get the dirtiest looks! Well, they seemed to think I would know the answer, so why disappoint them?

Another one was "what is that palm tree that has a big flower like a hibiscus with some sort of a guava or something hanging out of the middle of it?" Jeez, I don't know, but I have to see that! Yes, you guessed it, it was a banana...... ;-)