Australian Wildlife Encounters No.6

I nipped outside last night to check on my veggie patch. We've got a small light above the steps at the back of the house and there are the usual moths, beetles and bugs circling around it.

Last night however something clattered into my head about the size of a light aircraft and landed on our screen door - a preying mantis.

I'd seen one before caught in a spiders web in our garage, but I'd never been hit in the head by one. Amy is completely unfazed by such things (I guess if you grow up in Australia that's the way it is).

Being 'fresh off the boat' though, I continue to be amazed by Australian fauna. Every time I see a flock of cockatoos take off from a central reservation or hear galahs squawking in the eucalypts it still impresses me (I do though still love the summer song of the blackbird who sits in a tree of our garden). We've also got a possum who regularly feeds off scraps in our garden (albeit on slightly reduced rations since the arrival of the guinea pigs).

The trees are full of chirruping cicadas at the moment and slightly less romantically the wheelie bin has the constant hum of flies around it.

I'm also always ever so slightly daunted when venturing into our garage after seeing red back spiders in there - even though nobody has actually died from a bite since 1953 or something. It just seems wrong somehow that you could die getting your bike out!