Wildlife Part 3

A small house guest that came with Caitlin's new house plant.  Our best guess is that this is a Crab Spider, but we are not really sure.

This cunning spider tried to eat me by setting up a web across our front entrance. Notice it only has 6 legs.

Same spider different angle, different camera lens.  Still cunning, still evil, still no idea what type of spider it is.

A Two-Toed Earless Skink. When we first found this little lizard we thought it was a small snake as it had a very serpentine way of moving, however upon closer inspection we saw that it did indeed have legs. If you look closely you can see the two toes for which it is named.

Our weekend! Outdoor movies and marriage equality.

The movie screen, as the sky begins to darken, and the moon rises.

A scene from the film My Neighbour Totoro, by Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki.

The start of the marriage equality rally at Forrest Place in the Perth Central Business District (CBD)

Marching through the CBD, with Perth's tallest buildings looming overhead.

People re-congregating as the march comes to an end.

Fremantle Part 1

Me on the beach at sunset

A tall ship in Fremantle Harbour.  The large domed structure to left is the Maritime Museum.

One of the large livestock ships that transports live australian sheep to Muslim countries in the middle east for Halal slaughter. These ships are the centre of a lively debate about the welfare implications of the live transport of animals.  

Wildlife Continued....

Kangaroos near the Byford Quarantine Station

A rock dove

A Ringneck parrot eating a sunflower pilfered from a garden.

Black Swans on the Swan River

Caitlin holding a tiny lizard.

An unwelcome visitor that came with our dining room table. This is another interesting morph of the redback that lacks the shiny black abdomen typically associated with these spiders. 

A Black House Spider, by far the most intimidating of the spiders we have seen so far. This large one was only about 2 inches long, but has a very menacing way of moving and has giant fangs (hidden by the angle of the photograph).  Fortunately these gals seem to be outside critters.

Wildlife

One of the major difference we have found living in perth is the diversity of urban wildlife.

A Galah, a medium sized red and grey parrot, that are very common, and always seem to congregate in pairs, or multiple sets of pairs.  Have yet to see a solitary bird or an odd numbered group.

A White-Tailed Black Cockatoo. Aptly named I would say, although not to be mistaken for the Red-Tailed Black Cockatoos which we have also seen in perth.

A skink of some variety hiding in the leaves.

A female Redback spider (highly venomous). One interesting point about this picture is that this particular female is very atypical.  Female Redbacks usually have a large glossy black abdomen, while this one has a rather shriveled matte black, almost brown abdomen.  We wondered if perhaps it had recently laid an egg sac, resulting in its emaciated appearance.

A Golden Orb Weaver spider. This picture does not really give an appreciation of the scale of this spider or it's web. However if you look closely you can see that in its mandibles this spider is eating a honey bee which is a little under an inch long. This spider's body is around 3" long not including the legs, and the web is likely over a meter in diameter.  Imagine walking into that web in the middle of the night.  *Shudders*

Let's give this a try!

Taken from the plane landing in Hong Kong

The Beginning

Hello Everyone,

I have decided to create a parallel blog to Caitlin's, chronicling our adventures here in Australia.  The reasoning is that we now have a proper internet connection, and we will now be able to start posting pictures from our time here.  While we could do this as a part of Caitlin's blog I felt that with the backlog of photo's we have from our first 6 weeks here that posting a bunch of pictures would clutter up what she has so wonderfully put together!

So this is the start of my blog.  It will be primarily a Photoblog with photos and captions of our time here, or random photos I wish to share.

So look for pictures in the days and weeks to come, and keep checking Caitlin's blog for updates about what is happening in our lives.

Cheers from Perth,

Iain