Recently, I experienced the most incredible natural history phenomena of my life!!

Hundreds of cracking blacksoil endemic snakes emerging each morning to gorge themselves on metamorph Cyclorana cultripes on the Barkly Tablelands, Northern Territory. 1/7 #wildoz

Cyclone Ester recently dumped a significant amount of rain on the usually barren, vegetationless, Barkly Tablelands (the first decent rain in a number of years). This rare flooding event resulted in a boom in vegetation, followed by plagues of insects and frogs. 2/7

Each morning, as the sun warmed the plains, speckled brown snakes (Pseudonaja guttata) and crack dwelling whipsnakes (Demansia rimicola) emerged on mass to hunt frogs. 3/7

At one waterhole we encountered upwards of 10-20 snakes at any one time doggedly hunting frogs sheltering in the rapidly drying pool. If my video skills were better, in this video you would see 5 speckled brown snakes within about 20m of each other!! 4/7

They were so consumed by the opportunity to feed on a highly abundant but temporally rare food source they were totally unfazed by us observing them! 5/7

Oi mate, have ya got any frogs under your boots? 6/7

To provide some context, over the last decade, I have spend literally weeks and driven thousands of kms in search of these species and had never previously encountered them. These plains are dissected by deep soil cracks in which they spend the majority of their lives. 7/7

Adding a little water to a usually barren, hospitable landscape can be completely transformative. It was a genuine honour to have the privilege to observe such an phenomenal event.