Sunbathing in the garden.

Awww, look. A butterfly.

When I took this photo my camera wasn’t aimed at the butterfly though, I had spent ten minutes aiming it in the direction of the big spider curled up in the bottom corner of the photo.

Lurking death….

Eeek, right? (Sorry to you arachnophobes, maybe you should stop reading now 😉 )

This guy is a Wolf Spider and, unfortunately, we have plenty of them living in the garden. They live in burrows, so digging a hole always brings the chance of an unexpected attack. I think that is all the more reason for more of those raised garden beds!

They love a bit of sun, often seen soaking up some rays in the mouth of their burrows. They can be quite hard to get close to, your shadow or the vibrations from your steps sees them dashing back down their hole to safety. This is good. I don’t want them thinking they can scare me off by standing up to me, although they definitely could.

Wolf spiders have excellent eyesight and aren’t wait-in-the-web kind of spiders, they will hunt down their prey.*

He was watching me… and freaking me out.

Now we come to the big problem I have.

Unfortunately his (or hers, but I’ll go with his) burrow is right where I need to dig the level for a new garden bed that is in the shed awaiting assembly.

He is pretty big, as you can see in comparison with the butterfly, and I have seen him stomping about his front garden of an evening without being wary of me at all.

I don’t really want to have to introduce him to the flat side of the shovel but my attempts at moving him on so far haven’t been successful at all…

Just for those of you who haven’t already run screaming away because of the horribleness of the spider, any spider, here is some video from a person who is more patient and far braver than me. Once my spider started getting a bit active I was happy to wander off and take some pictures of things that were less scary… and hairy.. 😉

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*Some years ago the Man was doing a late afternoon car repair that ran into the evening. He was lying out on the driveway underneath the car and I was holding a torch for him. Every now and again we could hear scuttling in the gravel near us and, shining the torch around, we could see three of these guys, big ones, hunting the critters attracted to the light. Terrifying.

As you can imagine there was never a car put back together as quickly as that one….

Scaly BBQ cleaner. Watch your fingers!

I have posted about lizards here before*, we often come across interesting ones in our travels and have heaps of small skinks in our garden, as does probably everyone in Australia. We also have Blue-Tongue lizards who live under the house and eat the frogs (grrrrr). This post is about a lizard we haven’t had in our garden though, a Goanna.

Goannas can be quite big and are pretty scary looking, but would rather run away from you than attack you. If we see one when we are driving through the bush they generally run up the nearest tree to get away. Still, I don’t recommend you mess with them.

Townsville Daily Bulletin 12 Jan 1948 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article62910863

I was amused to find this article from 1948 about a goanna infestation at St Arnaud. I bet poor young Noel Petrie wasn’t amused after being chased through a paddock by two marauding goannas though.

I wonder what drove those goannas into a more populated area? Bushfire? Perhaps because it was summer food was getting scarce. Either way, a normally peaceful goanna will not stop at anything to get a feed…

When I was looking for an article to post I found this clip and just had to add it in. This guy is the scariest looking BBQ cleaner you will ever see. No wonder the owner of the BBQ was filming from inside the house 🙂 (He could have turned the telly down though!)

Some other lizard posts:

A near miss and an angry lizard.

Lookout lizard.

An unexpected visitor 1935.

Tiny katydid. (With candy cane legs).

After posting the picture yesterday of the katydid that managed to avoid being weeded, I thought I would follow-up with this photo of a tiny katydid I took a few weeks ago.

When katydids first start wandering around in our garden they are tiny, (this one was only about 5mm long) and very cute. We can see them all over the place for about a week and then they seemingly disappear. Later, they turn up looking more like the one from yesterday but I really love them when they are this small.

I found out that the reason some of these tiny creatures are green and others are candy cane striped is due to what they are eating. I am not sure what the ones who look like this could have eaten to make the so red, but knowing that makes me want to catch a few and only feed them purple or orange food…..

Tiny, but with attitude….

Worm farm intruder.

We have had some seriously hot days recently so when today turned out to be a slightly cooler 32°c (90°F) we were not the only ones relieved. I didn’t spend too much time outside but still managed to find quite a few insects out and about, probably making up for lost time.

When I went to put some tea leaves in the worm farm this morning I lifted the lid to find this dotty beetle totally startled by the sudden light.

I helped him out with a stick and then called out the kids to have a look. (There is no way that any critter is allowed to be released into the wild without everyone getting a look at it.)

I am not sure how he made it in there, I guess he must have been hiding in some leaf litter I put in there a few days ago. He would have had a nice time in there, it is cool and damp, so I think he might be cursing me for evicting him!

Number 1 helpfully held the stick for me while I got my camera and I managed to get a few shots off before he flew off to his new life without his wormy friends.

Worm farm intruder.

Monster in the dark.

Every night, just before I go to bed, I take Jack out for a bit of evening relief.

I have one of those long retracting leads for this purpose so I can just stand on the back verandah and she can take care of business without me having to follow her around.

One reason for me staying on the verandah is because I am lazy, the other is because every night, out in the darkness, we disturb a possum and I would rather not get in its way.

Yes, I know possums are cute and mainly harmless but the one we have is particularly grouchy.

If you have never heard a grumpy Australian possum before below I am adding a YouTube clip for you. This clip is only marginally helpful in portraying the horror of Grumpy Possum. When I hear this noise it is at full volume coming out of the pitch black….

Even though I know full well that the animal making the noise is no bigger than Jack, it sounds as though a creature easily capable of chewing off a limb is just out of the small circle of light. If a monster stumbled into view and lunged at me I would not really be surprised.

Usually the possum is in the trees when we go out, so not only are we subjected to that scary, throaty growl but it is accompanied by the creaking of branches and a thump as the possum bumps to the ground. It then stomps off, grumbling all the while, to set off the dogs down the hill.

I know I could put out some apple and try to make friends with it, but I am a little concerned that it is some previously unknown beast that is only impersonating a possum. If I go out in the dark with a fruity offering it might result in me staggering back minus one arm and Jack never leaving the house again!

Here is a clip of what possums are like when they are happy to see you. Small, cute and friendly. Now play that growly clip again and you will know why I stay on the verandah at night…. Here be monsters….. 😉

A while ago I did a post which included a clip of a koala making an equally scary noise. Why is it the small furry ones who sound the worst?

Chickenwire hopper.

I took this photo over the weekend while the Man and I were out working in the garden.

At the moment the garden is full of tiny hoppers like this (less than 1cm) just hanging around although I expect that there are some other critters out there who are only too happy to thin their numbers….