Herping season coming to a close

Litoria tyleri, photo taken by yours truly

A few little secrets about me: I am a twitcher (extreme bird-watcher) and a herper ( = amphibian and reptile seeker; "herp" is short for herpetofauna). I absolutely love these two pasttimes, and I have a group of close friends who are also very knowledgeable and keen to find new or unusual animals to report and "tick" off a life-list or regional list of animals seen.
Twitching is a year-round affair; it doesn't matter what day or season you go out, there will always be birds. Rare ones? Well reports on vagrant or unusual sightings of birds are regularly (and reliably) posted on a fantastic bird site called Eremaea Birds (reports are in "birdlines" by regions in Australia only). Herping is a different story. Firstly, to get yourself a reptile or amphibian in Brisbane (QLD Australia) you need the right season. Late Spring-Late Summer is the optimal herp season; for the rest of the year, most herpetofauna are either inactive or brumating (a type of dormancy in reptiles similar to hibernating), so the chances of seeing one is relatively low (seeing as the Southern Hemisphere is starting to cool down at the tail-end of Summer, I am very sad to wave goodbye to the herps for another 8-9 months). Secondly, you need the weather to be in your favour. To maximise your chances of seeing interesting reptiles, you need a very hot, sunny day with no rainfall, and for amphibians, a warm day is preferable, but ideally recent heavy rainfall will bring out all the frogs in a chorus. Herping is an activity best suited to the night; most hunting and breeding activities happen at this time, and as such herps are more likely to be spotted or heard. You also need to know herp "hot-spots", based on local experienced herper recommendations or reports of herps on government sites (for Queensland, Wild Net is a useful guide to what exists in an area), to have a decent chance of spotting your target species. Feel free to ask me any questions on herping or birding in the comments below, and for those of you who have iPhones/iPads and are interested in recording GPS and species information during birding or herping trips I can recommend the "Sightings" app by Stewart Macdonald (author of Australian Reptile Online Database).