Eastern spinebill

When first described, the eastern spinebill was placed in Certhia, a genus of treecreepers. It was soon transferred into the honeyeater family Meliphagidae, a much more comfortable fit for this small, dapper bird.

Although quite common, spinebills are infrequent visitors to this garden. They appear to trigger the rage circuits in the Lewin's honeyeaters, which chase them as soon as they spot them. This and their incessant activity make them difficult to photograph, but I managed to get this one while it was still deciding its next move.

Poss-zilla

I had given them the benefit of the doubt. Coppery brushtails look like fuzzy footballs because of all that long fur, essential for keeping warm in a montane rainforest. But at three o'clock last Monday morning*, I noticed a turn-in-the-wind (Mallotus paniculatus) in the back garden had started to do yoga. It looked as though it were trying to touch its toes.

The tree bent over further and further until it was almost formed an inverted U. And then with a crack, it snapped in half. A fuzzy football fell on the ground, looked dazed for a moment and then strolled off.

These possums have picked up where Tropical Cyclone Olga left off. Nothing can resist the rampage of the coppery poss-zillas.

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* I'm becoming an insomniac.

The culprit, Poss-zilla, goes about his business of stealing cherru guavas. The fruit doesn't even get a chance to ripen before it falls prey to the rapacious marsupials.

The turn-in-the-wind first thing on Monday morning

The turn-in-the-wind on Monday afternoon, after the pademelons found it

Please, can I have some more?

Raiders of the last guava

Fruit-stealing thrushes inspired William Morris to create a print that became one of his most successful fabric designs, the Strawberry Thief. Had Morris faced a brace of coppery brushtails raiding his cherry guava trees instead of speckled songbirds, I'd imagine the resulting design would have been even more popular and enduring.

Note the accomplice hidden in the leaves

Looks like there'll be no cherry guavas left for me

Another day, another dead pademelon

Two, in fact. A joey and an adult male. I didn't look closely, but I think the adult was one of the regular visitors to my garden.



Time to arm the wildlife. A derringer would fit nicely into a pademelon's pouch, I reckon.

Grand moths

Moths, I've found, are a bit like London buses. They are a standard unit of measurement for dinosaurs and giant squid. None for ages and then they all come along at once. Over the past few days, the windows have been covered with them. Not any old moths, mind you, but with aposematically coloured ones. That is, moths decked out in bright warning coloration that signalled their unpalatability to predators. Sometimes, things are not what they seem and bright colours are a con job pulled by a sheep in wolf's clothing. But I assumed truth in sdvertising with these three and did not bother to work out whether they were full of toxins or just full of bluff.

(And, yes, I do need to clean my windows again. That last one is on the wall. My windows may be dirty, but I can still see through them.)

Paralacydes maculifascia (Arctiidae)

Asota heliconia dama (Aganaidae)

Bracca rotundata (Geometridae)

When I went outside last night to photograph the Bracca, I disturbed a large huntsman spider that had been sitting on the screen door. It ran over my hand. I said something along the lines of 'Oh, goodness! What a big spider', but managed to get a pic of it as it scuttled off into the car port. I didn't measure it accurately, but it was pretty much the same size as my hand. No idea what it's feeding on. Possibly flying foxes and bandicoots.

The biter bit

As the rain continues, all sorts of ground-dwelling invertebrates are taking advantage of the patio. The pademelons, who think they own the space, now have to share it with spiders, ants and beetles.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've seen several red-and-black spiders (Oncodamus decipiens) wandering across the bricks. This species occurs in rainforest along the east coast of Australia from the Hunter River region of New South Wales to north of Cairns in Far North Queensland. It is not a great web-builder. The roaming habit is shared with other members of the family (Nicodamidae) and is recorded in the name of the most well-known species in the group, Nicodamus peregrinus.

But these peregrinations can lead them into trouble. This one strolled too close to the web of another spider (a uloborid?) and ended up feeding both her and her spiderlings.

Nicodamidae is restricted to Australia, New Guinea and New Zealand.