Emma's Christmas Special

Well, this has nothing to do with Christmas, actually, reflecting how I feel about the day.

We're waiting to see what Cyclone Grant does with our plans for a lazy couple of days. For some reason this "waiting for potential disaster" tone of the day inspired me to post these photos that I've been meaning to do something with for weeks. Perhaps in case our awesome camera gets blown away and we lose them?!

I started an "Animals in the night" photo project a while ago, but some  of the critters I wanted to capture I could only find during the day.

So. Here they are.

I used to call these  two the love birds, but I think in fact they are Bar Shouldered Doves, having  bought myself a bird book. They were camping on a branch over our  toilet, so I had lots of viewing opportunities.  For a little while there was  only one of them, but then the other one came back (or a new partner was found).

Since the wet  season set in, they've found somewhere else - hopefully somewhere drier- to sleep.

The ubiquitous green tree/toilet frog. 

These two orange-footed scrubfowl are very territorial birds. They live in our yard, mainly on the ground, but they have been known to fly when we accidentally startle them. 

They're very flighty, incredibly hard to get close enough to to photograph (in fact Pete recently spotted what he thinks must be their chick, but only for a second, and we've not seen it since). They are a very entertaining couple- we often wake up at night to the sound of them cackling away to each other. Hence we've taken to calling them "the cackle heads".

I think they sleep among the leave litter under a big tree in our yard, but my night-time sneaking about hasn't yet resulted in me finding their nest, though they taunt me with their cackling.

I'll keep trying to get a photo of their chick.

Saluting the sun:

And here is our nightly indoor companion, entertaining us with its moth-hunting, as it takes advantage of the time we have the light on and attract all the insects:

The other night it caught a moth that was perhaps heavier than anticipated, and it fell onto the piano with half its catch still protruding from its jaw. Luckily it landed on its feet and continued its feast as  though nothing happened.

I took these photos with zoom and flash, and got that  weird effect as though the gecko were hovering in light, or under a microscope or something.

So there is my Christmas special for ya'll.