Denizens of our garden

Things I like about Sydney No. 11: the denizens of our garden.

I have to be brief. There is still cleaning to be done, boxes to sort through, emails to answer and bills to be re-directed. But I am temporarily escaping the nightmare that is moving to share with you some of the denizens of our new garden - at least those I've managed to blurrily capture on film. The striped marsh frog that clicks away merrily at night has escaped my feeble lens as have the currawongs, kookaburras, lorikeets and Grey Butcherbird. But here are some of those who deigned to stay for a while in order for me to dig through the debris and find our camera...

First up, the Eastern Water Dragons. This is a female and although well over three foot long not the largest we've had parading about the drive. There is a particularly enormous and red-bellied male with extremely long claws that I feel it is better to avoid...

Our neighbours have complained that the Dragons use their swimming pools as a toilet but I am glad that they feel comfortable enough to use the local amenities.

Secondly, the King Parrots. A pair of them come daily to sit in one of the trees by our balcony but I seem to be the only person to have seen them. My mother spent a week refusing to believe that they existed, insisting daily that they must have been Lorikeets and looking at me askance every time I mentioned them. Well, Mother, here's proof  for you.

This is a female. The male is gaudier, with a head entirely red. It refused to pose for me but I am sure we will get better acquainted.

Finally, the Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos. Apparently I am not supposed to feed them because they attack the timber of people's houses with their all-powerful beaks and most of our house is in fact wooden...Nevertheless, as they are coming closer daily I think I shall be able to tempt them to perch on the balcony for a bit of banana...

The stance and expression of the following cockatoo manages to somehow encapsulate how I currently feel after nine days of cleaning: crazed, blurry and more than a little bit harried. Once I have settled into life in the wilds I shall be back with more. But for now, I shall go and try to deal with Sniff's constant bewilderment about why the hell he has been plonked into the middle of the bush just when he'd made a great success of city living. It's just not fair his eyes say to me as another dragon scuttles past and the whiff of possum breezes by and he doesn't know which way to scarper...























P.S. One day later and I have managed to capture the male King Parrot pecking away at my sunflower seeds (albeit by crappy phone camera, but still). It doesn't do justice to his magnificent gaudy splendour but I am so pleased at my success in enticing him closer that I am posting it anyway...By the way, the greedy bastard has demolished half the seeds in just one day...