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*