Poisonous Australians

This is not a posting about members of any political party that might spring to your mind. Rather, it records the Big 3 of the morning of 20 September.
  1. On arising I started to fill our coffee maker with water. To my astonishment a huge - perhaps 10cm across the legs - huntsman spider emerged from the water container. I have no idea how it got in there, but with swift use of a tea towel the offending arachnid was moved outside.
  2. Shortly thereafter while taking the rodent for its walk she suddenly jumped forward. This regained my attention from the grebes in the dam) to see she was about 30cm from a 1.5m (at least) red-bellied black snake! A yank on the lead and she came back, and the snake took off for cover. Hmmm. For further info on this issue see also http://franmart.blogspot.com/2008/10/rodent-wars.html
  3. Towards the end of the walk I picked up a rock to put on one of our Goldsworthyesque sculptures and found a rather pretty and rather large scorpion sittng underneath it. I think I will start shaking my boots before I put them on! I went back to take a photograph later but it had vanished.

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