Larena Woodmore
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tasforest.com
Larena Woodmore
@tasforest.com
190 followers 82 following 95 posts
Citizen scientist documenting the biodiversity of a 70 acre bush property in the north of #Tasmania, Australia

https://www.tasforest.com
https://www.youtube.com/@tasforest

📍 lutruwita/Tasmania
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tasforest.com
I'll never get used to crossing paths with a platypus in my own garden.

#platypus #tasmania #TasmanianAnimals #australianwildlife
November 22, 2025 at 3:28 AM
tasforest.com
It's always exciting when a camera trap captures a platypus. When one's in the water a layer of air and water on its fur makes it too cold to trigger the sensors, but this one climbed right out of the water. #platypus #australiananimals #Tasmania #monotremes #nature #cameratrap #trailcam #wildlife
June 23, 2025 at 12:07 AM
tasforest.com
Potoroos & bandicoots are overjoyed that it's mushroom season and are digging little (and some not-so-little) holes absolutely everywhere. The holes help water penetration, provide a place for seeds to land and germinate, and digging helps spread fungal spores. #Tasmania #AusAnimals #Potoroo #Nature
June 16, 2025 at 2:38 AM
tasforest.com
Is eastern spinebill season! I love the markings on these little guys. #EasternSpinebill #honeater #AustralianBird #Tasmania #Autumn
Photo of a tiny bird with long slender beak perched on a piece of fence wire and looking straight upwards. The top of its head is black and chin is white with a large brown smudge. It looks like it's wearing a chestnut-coloured jacks with black lapels over a white shirt. Photo of the same bird, this time looking to the left with its tongue out. This photo shows black wins and tail, and the rest of it is chestnut-coloured.
May 13, 2025 at 4:32 AM
tasforest.com
A couple of nights ago we had the first rain in a long time, causing lots of frogs to climb out of the ferns and up the loungeroom window. #Nature #Frogs #Amphibians #Herps #Tasmania #Rain #auswildlife
Photo of a frog's underside, as seen through a window at night. Its body is semi-transparent and internal organs are visible through its white-spotted skin. Photo of another frog's underside, as seen through a window at night. This one is climbing to the right, showing off bright yellow thighs.
March 16, 2025 at 3:59 AM
Reposted by Larena Woodmore
leftychris.bsky.social
I was never conscious until now that average Australians generally avoid gratuitously interfering with wildlife. I like the fact that if you do engage in this kind of idiotic behaviour here, you’ll be slammed for it. Makes me proud to be Australian. #wombats #dickheadinfluencers
Sky News Australia American influencer's 'distressing' act with baby wombat angers Aussies 14 hours ago
March 12, 2025 at 6:39 PM
tasforest.com
The turbo chooks found the paddling pool (or "paddy pool") that we put out for the pademelons, wallabies and possums to drink from, and they're pretty happy with it. #Tasmania #NativeHen #TurboChook #Wildlife
Photo of four Tasmanian native hens, also known as "turbo chooks", standing in a bright blue round plastic paddling pool.
March 11, 2025 at 2:26 AM
tasforest.com
Our creek's water level is quite low at the moment, but this hasn't stopped a giant freshwater crayfish (Astacopsis gouldi) from hanging out in one of the deeper pools. It's the biggest one I've seen for quite a while. #Tasmania #ausinverts #AstacopsisGouldi #Crayfish #Freshwater #Nature #Endangered
Photo of a large crayfish sitting in clear water at the endge of a creek. The top of its head is sticking out of the water, showing a small ridge in the centre of its brow. This (as well as size) is the identifying feature of the Tasmanian Giant Freshwater Crayfish.
March 7, 2025 at 5:00 AM
Reposted by Larena Woodmore
earthlingcards.bsky.social
Why I do what I do. All the ticks & leeches & scratches and itchy bites.... all forgotten. All the bills & responsibilities & horrors in the news.... all forgotten. My fears for the future, for all the Earthlings, my anger at political corruption... all forgotten. Enjoy the moments like this :)
February 25, 2025 at 11:07 PM
tasforest.com
This morning I saw the most amazing spider webs hanging in the rushes. Up close, they look man-made. I couldn't find the spiders, so I don't know who these belong to. #Nature #Spiders #Spiderweb #Arachnids #Tasmania #Australia
Closeup photo of a spiderweb arranged in sqares that look almost exactly like a net made from fine fishing line. There are dewdrops on many of the intersections. Photo of a tightly spun spider web hanging from the stems of rushes. It is shaped like a round cloth that has been pulled up in the middle to create a central cone. The top of the cone contains sticks, twigs and insects that have been caught.
February 22, 2025 at 3:30 AM
tasforest.com
We put a trap out to catch a mouse that's been running around on the verandah. No luck, but if the possum had been able to get in it would have. With no moving parts, pokes from a possum don't disable this type of trap. #BrushtailPossum #MouseTrap #Wildlife #Australia #Tasmania #australiananimals
Photo of a possum peering into a metal box mouse trap from behind. Photo of a pobubm sniffing the top of a metal box mouse trap.
February 18, 2025 at 11:35 PM
tasforest.com
The robins are back! There weren't many last year but now there are are lots of scarlet and flame robins about. This photo of a male scarlet is the reason there's an old piece of plumbing pipe propped outside the dining room window. #robins #australianbirds #Tasmania #redbirds #nature
Photo of a small bird perching on an old piece of plumbing pipe. The bird's chest is bright red, there is white around the red, over the beak and bits on the wings and tail and its head, back, beak and eyes are black.
February 18, 2025 at 12:24 AM
tasforest.com
I just teleported like a cat that has seen a cucumber, and also made a whole new noise. Nearly trod on a tiger snake. 😬
February 16, 2025 at 12:24 AM
Reposted by Larena Woodmore
clawkins.bsky.social
In #Tasmania? How about marking #WorldWetlandsDay by getting into the CallTrackers project? Help map & monitor elusive, Endangered Australasian Bittern booms, bat chirps & more. It's a fun adventure with a super-cool #bioacoustics gadget...
📷 Helen Cunningham

🦇🎙️ #citsci #CallTrackers
Australasian bittern hiding among reeds, eyeing the photographer dubiously and standing upright with bill pointing upwards to blend in. It's hard to make out through the reeds, but it's the size and shape of a stocky heron, with streaky cream and brown breast and long, solid bill. They're rarely seen - much easier to detect by the male's booming calls.
February 2, 2025 at 3:02 AM
Reposted by Larena Woodmore
guyballard.bsky.social
Australia approved clearing of ~26,000 hectares of #threatenedspecies habitat in 2024.

At the same time, incentives for private land owners to protect or enhance habitat remain ineffective.

This is a trajectory we must change for everyone’s sake.
January 20, 2025 at 11:14 PM
tasforest.com
Sometimes the Bennett's wallabies make a head start on the pademelons, coming out to eat before dusk. This one was snacking outside the lounge room window until he was distracted by a female. #Macropods #australiananimals #Wallaby #Marsupials #Tasmania #Wildlife #Nature
Photo of a Bennett's wallaby with its front paws on the ground and looking directly at the camera. It looks like a mini kangaroo and has dark markings like makeup on its face, dark edges to his ears and tan marks above his dark eyes with black eyelashes. A blade of grass is sticking out of his mouth as he chews, and his pink tongue is sticking out.
January 16, 2025 at 1:15 AM
Reposted by Larena Woodmore
dorkymum.bsky.social
Great to see more folk from #tasmania still arriving here every day! Here are two starter packs of Tasmanian users that might help you find some familiar faces. These links can also be shared on other platforms to encourage folk to make the move over here!

go.bsky.app/Dhstko4

go.bsky.app/QdK7iXR
January 11, 2025 at 10:19 PM
Reposted by Larena Woodmore
jackdashby.bsky.social
It's always a pleasure to be in @nhm-london.bsky.social mainly to visit their perfectly overstuffed #echidna, which is mounted with its belly almost flat to the ground and its feet pointing in the wrong direction (its back feet should point backwards). #Echidnas #taxidermy
An echidna which is too fat, the wrong shape, and with back feet pointing forwards
January 10, 2025 at 4:35 PM
Reposted by Larena Woodmore
jackdashby.bsky.social
An all-black baby #TasmanianDevil pops back out into the world.
#fieldwork #Tasmania #MammalWatching #WildOz #TasmanianDevils
January 9, 2025 at 9:35 AM
Reposted by Larena Woodmore
earthlingcards.bsky.social
#Marasmius #mushrooms are already awesome, so to find one with a #slime mold on its stipe, was fantastic! I think a #Craterium perhaps dictyosporum. #fungifriends
January 8, 2025 at 7:25 PM
tasforest.com
When you look closely at insects, they really are like something from scifi/horror. This gusteruption wasp has unsheathed her ovipositor and is laying eggs in the nest of a solitary bee. Guess what happens to the bee babies next? #Insects #auswildlife #Horror #Wasps #Bees #Aliens
Photo of a dark grey insect perched on the side of a timber house post. She looks like an alien with huge eyes in a tear-drop shaped head and long backwards-bending back legs. Her abdomen that's narrow at the waist is held high with what looks like a long bent white-tipped needle sticking out the end. This is the sheath that usually covers her ovipositor. Instead the ovipositor, which looks like a long red even thinner needle is sticking into a hole in the wood, through a patch of resin that was placed there by a bee to protect the place where she'd laid her eggs.
January 8, 2025 at 12:20 AM
tasforest.com
Although not native, our massive salvia bush is appreciated by the birds. Fairy wrens live and breed in it and the Eastern spinebills love the flowers. Shame they won't turn and face the camera though! #australianbirds #Tasmania #Spinebill #Birds #Nature
Photo of a small, slender, bird with a long pointed beak the flowering stem of a bright green salvia plant. The stem is purple with white flowers. The bird looks as if it's about to fall up-side down, with everything below the shoulders being lower than its feet. Its back is chestnut-coloured and head and tail are black. You can just see the edge of its white and chestnut chest markings.
January 3, 2025 at 12:24 AM
tasforest.com
When lots of birds shout at once there's usually a raptor about. Today it was one of our two resident grey goshawks, high in the trees. Tasmanian ones are the white form of the species. #Goshawk #Raptor #AustralianBirds #Tasmania #White #WhiteBird #Nature
Photo of a pure white goshawk sitting high in a Eucalypt tree. Its beak is yellow with a black tip, and eyes are orange. Long talons can be seen gripping the branch it's sitting on.
December 31, 2024 at 3:45 AM
Reposted by Larena Woodmore
jackdashby.bsky.social
Often the best way to spot a #platypus is to look for the cloud of mud they kick up while they're foraging underwater.
#fieldwork #Tasmania #MammalWatching #WildOz #platypuses
December 29, 2024 at 6:39 PM
tasforest.com
Processing photos today, I realised I've found the 500th species at my home - this nice little cuckoo wasp. Not bad for just three years.

#Biodiversity #Tasmania #Insect #Wasp #Metallic #australianinvertebrates
Photo of a small wasp, from behind, with wings folded on its back. The body is textured with small dots like tiny balls and is metallic, mainly blue but with aqua, purplish and black areas. The photo was taken after it landed in cobwebs at sunset, so the blurred background is in golden brown tones.
December 23, 2024 at 6:00 AM