Sunday 6 February 2011

Sunday scrapbook

Quite a lot of photos my kids have taken end up stored on my computer. There's a series of about eight shots of this big huntsman spider*. If you click on the pic, you can see it even bigger!I get a lot of Will's pics in particular because while he has a fab camera of his own, he likes to use my little one. When I retrieve my camera, use it and download the pics I've taken, I occasionally get a load of his as well.I included this one, above, so you get some idea of its size against the doormat.
I think this next spider's poorly, or dead.This next one is one of our enormous bull ants — their bites really, really hurt, and the resultant swelling will itch like hell for weeks afterwards.
Plus videos — there is a series of videos showing ants removing the flesh from the dead mouse whose skull Will still has.
So this week, I thought I'd take part in Dawn's Sunday Scrapbook with some of the creatures Will has photographed that end up stored alongside my far less creepy pics!
All these were taken down south, where the house is on a bush block and there are lots of bugs. On some summer nights, there is a constant banging on the window as beetles and other insects hurl themselves at the glass trying to get to the lights inside.
This is one of my shots. Last weekend, in the strong blustery wind generated by Cyclone Bianca, this beautiful leaf insect blew on to the verandah upstairs. Its wings and body are the same shape and green as the leaves of the eucalypts in which it lives, and its legs are identical to the reddish leaf stalks. Wonderful.

:: I was looking at my recent stats and I seem to have had an awful lot of visitors from two or three so-called "adult friend" sites. I'm wondering if they ventured my way because of the title of the post before last ... what do you reckon?

* Hu
ntsman spiders are really common and not deadly to humans. They don't make webs but they can move fast and jump. And they can be big — they can eat cockroaches.
You very often see them indoors, where they like to cling to the ceiling. One jumped on to my pillow one night — the noise of its landing just centimetres from my face woke me up ...

4 comments:

andamento said...

Yuck!I would not want one of those on my pillow thank you very much. Interesting though.

Jennifer said...

We do live in awe, frankly, of the wild life of Australia. I love your sense of co-habitation with your fellow residents!

Anna said...

that is one big spider. the ones in my house are never that big.

Cathy said...

Wow, I definitely think I will stick to England Lesley. I don't actually mind spiders and other insects apart from earwigs and cockroaches which I detest, but the size of your insect life is way beyond my comfort zone.

Your son is very handsome btw. I wish I could whizz the years back and be 21 again...haha.