medwaymark

Showed the guys at work your ant photo....basically they weren't interested other than it just confirmed that I am nuts

Did you notice that the one in the middle is bigger than the others....size of the head and legs.....

Must get to the library for an ant book......

moneypenny20

I found the biggest shiniest purple slug on the veranda today. Sadly, I realised it's the first slug I've seen since I've been here. This bugger made up for that though. It was HUGE!

viviennef

I am trying to be a little self sufficient - I have chickens and have planted lots of herbs, veg, grapes, fruit trees etc.

What a complete nightmare I am having
stink bugs
caterpillers that are 2 inches long with big eyes - lot of them
little grasshoppers that eat an entire crop of a herb in one sitting - hundreds of them
elephant bugs
black soldier flies (now my friends but previously the larvae were intruders in my worm bin)
Mango tree pest - unknown name

Last night I went in my bathroom and there were hundreds of tiny tiny worm like things with black heads - the entire thing being the size of a tiny tiny piece of cotton. No idea what they are - I bleached it right through yesterday pm and then last night I saw these things. I did it all again at 2am and now this morning there are more. Mysterious and distinctly unnerving.

I dont suppose gecko babies are like that are they?

the list goes on.

I am just about to reach for the pyrethrum

Vivienne

medwaymark

Talking of geckos....this one really made me jump today. It was in one of our server rooms, so it was quite cool in there.

emelems

ROFL! Awww.. you are unappreciated in your day!

If you come up with anything, then let me know!

Em x

moneypenny20

He/she's gorgeous

asprilla

I know exactly what you mean...the nature and wildlife over here really is stunning... a couple of times spring to mind. Last year we went lychee picking at a farm at the foot of mount beerwah, it really is quite a beautiful spot, hidden from the world. On our way home, through the back roads, we had to stop as there was a huge kangaroo on the road, not letting us pass... it was somewhere between 5 and 6' tall. Not like the tiddlers you normally see round these parts...

What else...a couple of weekends ago we went fishing at north stradbroke. The waters there are crystal clear. In the morning we fished surfside and in the afternoon we fished from some rocks at Dunwich. A decent sized carpet shark decided to investigate us, and he spent 20mins swimming back and forth in the waters below our feet !

asprilla

On the flipside, Australia has its fair share of extremely annoying creatures.

e.g. the horse fly. Last time I was on main beach at north stradbroke I didn't notice any.... but this time, there were tonnes of the b*ggers.

For anyone who hasn't seen them, they are about 1inch long, big, brown, and they bite. (and it hurts).

kiwinow

Well that's true. We were sitting outside trying to cheer ourselves up with the fact that we don't have many flies, no bull ants, no snakes, no heartworm or paralysis ticks etc.

But it's just not the same watching starlings and blackbirds eat the bread you throw on the back lawn. In Australia we sat outside our camper and watched rosellas, black and white cockatoos, galahs and kookaburras, and we loved walking along a beach sporting pelicans rather than just seagulls. I loved watching kangaroos and emus in the wild but I'm afraid I can't shake the kiwi idea that possums are vermin.

asprilla

I like the drive on the houghton highway bridge across to redcliffe....there's a streetlight every 30m or so with a pelican perched on top.

kiwinow

Yeah. Don't they look ridiculous up there?
We saw one perched on a lamppost on Urangan Pier in Hervey Bay. They look so uncomfortable with their massive webbed feet balancing on this little perch.

Possums

we have got a lot down here too and yep they do hurt

emelems

Also, when you look up at the really high electricity pylons and see a huge birds nest up the top! Usually an Eagles nest I would think??

Em x

Kooky.

I've posted this before but this little chap was about a metre from my patio door, in the garden of our tiny terraced house 5 minutes from the North Sydney CBD. How cool is that. Shame about all the poo he and his mates drop off the pergola onto the patio.

One reason we moved into such an urban area was so that we wouldn't have any wildlife, due to having 3 cats.

Said cats, however, are thankfully in awe of the local critters, including the noisy miners that gang up on and screech at them.

Saw a cassowary half way up the track at Mount Lewis a few years ago when on safari; our guide said it was a rare sighting.

paul30

Couldn't agree more I was just leaving work on saturday backing my car out of the parking bay as I saw a lone Koala just wandering across the road in front of me just wish I'd been able to get a pic of it