Yellow on black

A moth attracted to the light last night and interesting one of the GEOMETRIDAE family one of the Nocophorini tribe species Melanodes Anthracitaria.
What is interesting is there are two forms one that is very black with jet black marking and the other which has yellow markings on the wings.

 
  As you can see this is the second form and the yellow markings are blotches where I have seen other photos with the yellow markings being thick lines across both wings.

They are widespread through Australia and the caterpillars feed on gum leaves. 

(Photo unfortunately a bit ordinary)

Foxtrot

An unusual call attracted my attention this morning,  as it was repeated at regular intervals and was moving around the area. It reminded me of dingoes when they are on the hunt but the call was wrong, then I caught a glimpse of an animal moving across the cleared area beyond the house but not enough to identify for certain.

It moved away and I could still hear it calling from the neighbours property and shortly after I saw it moving directly to our house, at a distance that enabled me to grab the camera.

As it got closer I could see it was a fox trotting along but not taking any notice of a wallaby that was nearby (it took off as soon as it saw the fox). My first shot must have alerted the fox as it propped for a second which gave me a better shot before it took off down through the scrub.

Sightings of foxes are infrequent and usually at night as they are caught in car lights on the district roads. I have seen a few on our property over the years but today was the first time I was able to get a photo.

Foxes were introduced to Australia around 1850 to provide hunting and a taste of "home" but by the 1870s they had gone feral and started decimating Australian wildlife. They are now found throughout Australia with the exception of some of the offshore islands and the tropical north. Shooting, trapping, poisoning are part of the control methods but eradication does not seem a likely prospect.
Hansom animals, but in the countries where they belong.

 

New camera zoom

My previous camera, a canon Powershot SX 30is did some very hard work of the past but finally the adverse conditions it has had to cope with on some of my excursions proved too much and the zoom feature packed up.
As cameras are super-ceded at a rapid rate the Sx30is is well in the past but I love the versatility of the compact zoom for the nature photography which I enjoy so decided to stay with Canon and go for the Powershot SX60hs that has even more features and has RAW capability, wireless and many other features that I probably won't use.

Just to see how it would perform from wide angle to full 65X optical zoom I took  some shots of a Red-necked Wallaby that was enjoying the morning sun just below the verandah.

Wide angle (spot the wallaby)

 

Full 65X zoom

All were hand held and at full zoom that is quite a test for the image stabiliser I have taken quite a few photos since and I am very pleased with the camera, just need more subjects..

Need a rename?

Investigating a fluffy white blob in a tree hollow and I found it to be a very hairy caterpillar which on a close look had quite striking colouring .

 Identifying the species did not take too long although there are a couple of similar looking caterpillars. It is the larvae of one of the moths in the ANTHELIDAE family Anthela varia and the poor moth which is quite attractive, has the common name of "Hairy Mary", obviously derived from the caterpillar. Why poor Mary gets lumbered with the description rather than Harry or Gary or any other I don't know.
The species is predominantly found in the coastal areas of Australia and the caterpillars which grow to about 90mm feed on eucalyptus leaves as well as other trees such as Macadamia and Pecan.