Photos!

During the internet-less interlude we have just experienced I have, of course, continued to take some photos. They are collected up here. The one above is of Anna admiring a salt water crocodile at a World Environment Day exhibition in Dee Why. Luckily these formidable creatures are not found in New South Wales (except obviously at your local fete) - my 'How To Treat Bites and Stings' book tells me that the symptoms of a saltwater crocodile bite are 'severe injuries, blood loss and death'. Helpfully they suggest you seek medical attention urgently, although it seems that the role of your local paramedic will largely be to confirm your death. This one is not very big - they can be up to 7 metres long, and they kill for fun. I'm going to try to avoid them.
And here we have the guilty culprits - George's birthday sleepover. They all look a bit worse for wear don't they? They had eaten a few blue M and Ms but apart from that I think we managed to keep them clean. From the left we have Anna, George, Borja, Jack, Lewis and Andrew.
Now, in previous posts you will have noted that I am developing an interest in the local birdlife. I haven't got a book yet, so at the moment we are calling this one 'Pigeon with Mohican'. I suspect his actual name is not quite so literally descriptive. Anna gave this one a name - Puff - although I didn't like to point out that we had no way of knowing whether it was the same bird visiting us every day...
I do know what this one is called! It's a rainbow lorikeet and there are absolutely hundreds of them in Dee Why. Every evening at dusk they gather in the trees along the beach and the noise of them calling to one another is deafening. They are pretty tame and would come quite close on the balcony to be fed, as you can see.
Aren't they just beautiful? I haven't been able to get a picture of my favourite two birds as yet, but when I do I will add them to the blog. There are a lot of sulphur crested cockatoos here, which if you used to watch Playschool in the old days was the bird they had on that. The most captivating bird I've seen though is a sort of heron like creature with a long, elegant neck, grey feathers and blue legs.

The birds here are very colourful and much of their interest lies in their difference to European species. However, I have not yet heard one with a pleasant call. They squawk. So far we have been able to differentiate between the bird that sounds like a monkey, and most disturbingly, the one that sounds like a child screaming. For a while I kept going to the window and scanning the lagoon looking for a youngster in distress, until I realised my mistake!
Eeeeeekkkkkk! Spider alert! This one is a Huntsman spider - very common but capable of delivering a nasty bite if you are unlucky. This one is at Anna's riding stable. People tend to leave them be as they eat a lot of other insects which cause more problems. And yes - they are BIG.
And this is Anna at her first riding lesson in Australia.

That's your lot - until next time!