About Ry Beaver – Wildlife Watching Australia
I’m Ry Beaver, a Perth-based wildlife watcher, photographer and citizen scientist with a particular obsession with the mammals, reptiles and frogs of south-western Australia.
I started this blog in 2015 as a way of recording what I was finding on night-time spotlighting trips around Perth and the wheatbelt. Ten years later it’s grown into something I’m genuinely proud of – a detailed, practical resource for anyone who wants to find WA’s remarkable wildlife for themselves. The site covers many species and dozens of locations, with an honest account of what’s involved in finding them.
Most of my best wildlife watching happens after dark. I spend a lot of nights driving or walking tracks through Dryandra, Perth Hills and other locations with a spotlight and a thermal camera, looking for woylies, numbats, phascogales and whatever else the night throws up. It’s addictive in a way that’s hard to explain to people who haven’t tried it – there’s nothing quite like picking up a pair of eyes in the torch beam and waiting to see what behind them. It’s also challenging to try and get the best photos in these conditions.
I don’t do this alone. My wife Mel comes out regularly and keeps me honest as my editor on the bigger posts. My kids Liam and Sienna have grown up on these trips and are both better wildlife spotters than most adults I know. Friends Russ and others are regular companions on longer expeditions. Wildlife watching is better shared.
South-west WA is one of the most biodiverse regions on earth and most people who live here have no idea. We have more species of reptile and frog than anywhere else in Australia, marsupials that exist nowhere else on the planet, and a conservation story that is by turns inspiring and heartbreaking. I write about all of it – the trip reports, the species guides, the where-to-find-them practicalities, and occasionally the deeper history of how the landscape got to where it is today.
I contribute my observations to iNaturalist, and I sell prints of my wildlife photography at Ry Beaver Photography. If a shot moves you, that’s the place to find it.
If you want to get in touch, use the form below. I’m always happy to hear from people who share this obsession.
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