Capturing Behaviour: Mating

Capturing Behaviour: Mating

Wildlife Photographic Magazine

The eighth instalment of “Capturing Behaviour” explores the mating behaviour of flying frogs in the tropical rainforest of Malaysia.

My article series, “Capturing Behaviour” for Wildlife Photographic Magazine explores the importance of being able to identify and anticipate a variety of common animal behaviour to achieve better and more captivating results with readers’ wildlife photography.

This article series helps readers to understand why wildlife behaviour is important to wildlife photography. My writing is illustrated with my wildlife photographs.

The challenge here was to capture the specialised reproductive strategy of this frog without causing disturbance to them or the site. We approached the subjects with care and caution.

My subject, Norhayati’s flying frog, lives in the tropical rainforests of Malaysia. While we were trudging through the slippery forest mud one night during the rainy season we heard their distinctive call. It sounds like two hollow sticks being knocked together. During their reproductive period male frogs call to attract females. The Norhayati’s flying frog spends most of the time high up in trees, but they will come down closer to ground level to mate and lay eggs.