Yarra River around Mt Lofty (Warrandyte State Park), Wonga Park
29 December 2006
Time for another walk along the Yarra in what's usually a good spot for damselflies and dragonflies.
When I got to the car park the sky was still shrouded in haze so I didn't expect anything much at first.
The first highlight came unexpected, a Copperhead snake
in the grass beside the track.
Unfortunately it got scared and scurried away before I was able to get a decent photo.
Not many dragonflies sighted today but plenty of damsels,
including many Powdered Wiretails Rhadinosticta simplex
and one Orange Threadtail Nososticta solida, both for the first time this season.
I spent 20 minutes with the latter trying to get some good photographs.
This included 5 minutes when she was perched on my trigger finger while finishing her meal.
It wasn't easy trying to photograph her there, for a while I was holding the camera upside-down in my left hand.
I also saw some other very interesting insects.
Image 8059 shows some small ants tending a caterpillar-like larva.
Image 8130 is of a Sand Wasp (Bembix species).
There were two of them flying around swiftly,
this one is energetically digging a hole in a patch of sandy soil.
The Spider Wasp (Hymenoptera species) in image 8825
was hunting around near the edge of the river.
It would circle an area then land somewhere and crawl over the ground.
At one point it frightened the wolf-spider in image 8824
out from under some charcoal.
Lastly I was happy to have one of the rare occasions where I saw a frog.
This one was in the unlikely location of an old birds nest.
At least it had nowhere to run and hide.
