Bush in our backyard

We live on a quiet, residential street in a small beach town about 40 minutes outside of Sydney. Not exactly what you imagine when you think of Australia (or watch the movie)- not a lot of outback near here. This is the suburbs baby. And yet we are often reminded of what fascinating (some time creepy and scary) wildlife live in this country. Nate quote of the night "In Seattle you can touch any animal and you won't die".


There are the wild birds of all varieties- some you would expect to only see in fancy pet shops. All of whom are incredibly noisy. But they are tame and aside from leaving poo in the pool they leave you alone. On the tame but creepy side there are the ants. You see millions of ants everywhere- little hills everywhere you walk. Luckily they seem to have plenty of food outside and stay out of the house. Continuing on the creepy scale we reach the roaches. These F*&! do make an indoor appearance from time to time....especially at night. I swear I've seen them fly- really they can leap up a wall. Rationally you know that they are more scared of you then you are of them but sometimes I'm not sure. Did you know that roaches will be the only survivors of a nuclear war? Anyway the suckers here are big (and I've lived in Florida and Hawaii).


Then we get to the top of the icky scale - the spiders. You see webs everywhere and are left to guess who's home it is- and are they of the deadly variety. Sydney is home to the world's most deadly spider the funnel web- who basically lives in every one's garden. One bit and you have only a few hours to get to a hospital or you die....yes die. Makes you want to stop gardening all together. I've been told that it is very rare to see one but I'm keeping my eyes open. Day 3 at our house I spotted a red back spider by our front door. I figured anything with a red strip down his back must be a mean bastard. I didn't realize that he was lethal....had I known I might not have alerted Michael as calmly as I did.


I'm just thankful that we don't live in Queensland where crocodiles are extremely prevalent and have been know to show up in backyards and swimming pools.


Safety is all relative :)


check out this video of a large wolf spider getting eaten by ant- this was filmed in our back yard.

This picture is of a large web suspended between two trees at the playground by our house. We looked up form our picnic lunch to notice that there were 8 large spiders living in that web. Hebee Geebez