The Fauna! The Fauna! I've seen more wildlife in the last 6
months than I'd seen in the previous 20 years. I'm not a
shrieker. I don't stand on chairs at the sight of the occasional
rodent. I hope I've always treated my fellow creatures firmly,
but fairly. If you're a snail, and you eat my petunias, you
die. I can't say fairer than that.
But funnel-web spiders! Reader, I shrieked. A lot.
Safely protected by apartment living from these burrow-dwelling
monsters in the past, my first sighting of a funnel web produced
palpitations worthy of Mrs. Bennett.
I was weeding the side garden bed, which is terraced to about waist
height, and I must have disturbed her nest. She came rushing out,
and I could have sworn she reared up at me, but I was busy screaming,
and I may have been mistaken.
With no gardening implements to hand, I rushed off to find a tool for
dispatching her, but by the time I'd got back she'd gone. That
part of the garden is now overgrown with weeds, and as far as I'm
concerned, she can live out her days in peace. I'm never going
there again. I looked up funnel-web spiders on the web, and it
says they have a life expectancy of 9 years. (Females, that
is. Males evidently get eaten by their ungrateful mates as soon
as they've done their bit for the survival of the species.) So
she and I are going to have to share the garden for some time yet.
Other fauna sightings have included a fox in a neighbor's hen house, and a black snake next door.
The bird life is prodigious. White cockatoos, black cockatoos,
gang-gangs, parrots, finches, wood-ducks, and honey-eaters are much in
evidence.
We get lots of families of ducks, and our streets are festooned with
duck crossing signs. Because the symbol is a mother duck followed
by a row of ducklings, you get the mistaken impression that ducks are
actually marching across the road in an orderly fashion. Alas,
wood-ducks aren't that bright. They love the warmth of the
asphalt, and are catastrophically inclined to sit down in the middle of
the road to soak up the rays. This has a terrible impact on duck
numbers, and the nerves of the hapless motorists who encounter them.
Mr. S and I were intrigued to discover that our local twitcher's group
is known as the Bird Observers Society. Evidently, watching is
out - too many connotations of perving. Observing sounds so much
more genteel.
Attentive readers will note that I haven't included Calvin the cat in
this summation of the local fauna - for the obvious reason that Calvin
refuses to acknowledge she is an animal - but late at night, when Mr S
is fast asleep, and I've fallen over her yet again on my way to the
bathroom, I have been known to hiss at her "You're only a cat, you
know".
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Change of Life 
