On a wet saturday night in late May I persuaded my brother to come out in the cold and wet and look for frogs – the clincher was a promise of whisky after to warm up!

I had been at a WA Naturalists talk by WA Museum‘s Paul Doughty – Curator of Herpetology.  He inspired me to get out when it is cold and wet as that in when you find frogs in the South-West of WA – frogging in a beanie I recall him mentioning!

He had said there had been Hooting Frog Heleioporus barycragus heard at Lesmurdie falls recewntly so I thought we might head to a spot nearby – Whistlepipe Gully – at the end of Lewis Rd. Forrestfield (just off Welshpool Rd).

As we arrived we could hear Quacking Frogs Crinia georgiana – but they all went quiet as we moved towards them.  Unperturbed we walked alongside the stream thinking we heard Hooting Frog higher into the bush areas.  No frogs were seen – despite lots of looking and waiting patiently in the dark – the frogs are sneakier than us amateur froggers!

At one point we knew why the frogs were quiet – a Tawny Frogmouth had flown in and was checking out a late night supper.

Blurry Shot of a Tawny Frogmouth

We kept at it for about an hour and a half in quite a lot of rain – it kept happening – we heard frogs and as we approached they shut up and we couldn’t spot them – our technique needs some serious refining.  I was trying out my new headtorch – Led Lenser H14.2 – it worked really well.

At this point the whisky was sounding pretty good as it had been raining much of the time.  We jumped into the car and my eagle eyed brother spotted something in the car headlights – definitely hopping.  We investigated and found a Quacking Frog – yes one of the ones we had been trying to find all this time!  Photos taken then back to the car for a warming whisky!  Successful night – no Hooting Frog but yes to Quacking Frog.