Wildlife

Outside and inside the house:

This little sweetie is an Eastern Rosella - the male. As usual, the blokes get fabulous plumage while the females blend into the background. The girls are a green to hide in the foliage.
They landed on this shrub - the name of which I have no clue - but it has tiny red berries. Aboriginal legend says the more red berries, the harsher the winter; it seems to hold true, though these parrots haven't got much to chew on... yet. He was joined not long after by a mate and together, they rummaged through the leaves in search of those elusive berries. Too soon in the season, though.

This is a female Huntsman. Go ahead and shudder; I did.
She came out from behind the cedar chest while I was vacuuming. They don't usually come out during the cooler months; in fact, they're more prevalent in the warm summer, coming inside to hunt down flies, spiders and other insects. Which is another reason I leave them alone.

I'm glad I have a zoom function on the camera. I don't like getting too close as these beasties can jump! Can you imagine? Or is that too nightmarish? It doesn't look to big? Okay, check this out:


They live in pine bark and behind the bark of trees, happily making more. But occasionally, they'll come into the house if it's too wet outside. Since we've been drought-ridden, I haven't seen too many. And in no way do I want to. I've seen bigger, this one, with her legs stretched out, is probably the size of a tea saucer.

By the following day, she was gone - probably back behind the chest - I'm not going to find out. Oh, the males, thankfully, are smaller, with longer legs.

I leave them in peace: fly spray just makes them angry and they are really, really fast, that long-term stuff doesn't work either, nor is our spider catcher big enough. They're not poisonous and I try to ignore them, but I'm oh, so aware of where they are.

As a kid of about nine, I woke up with one of them on my bed covers by my feet: no wonder spiders - as a species - scare the tripe out of me. Just thought I'd share...