
In the last three weeks we have finally had some rain (see previous post for details) and the insects are responding. We have more …
- Beetles – mostly 12mm long brown beetles, with a few green ‘Christmas beetles’, flying to the house lights at night. Some ladybird-size beetles in the shrubbery too, but no Elephant Beetles yet.
- Dragonflies, in our garden again; at least 3 species.
- Mud-dauber wasps and resin bees.
- Orb-weaver spiders, after a long gap. The Austracantha aren’t back yet but the Silver Orb-weavers are.
- Mantises – I have seen two hatchings (1) and (2).
- Cicadas – I have seen three species so far: the Brown Bunyip at left, the one posted here almost a month ago and a green one I didn’t photograph.

We also have more …
- Frogs, large and small. The one on this page is about half the length of my little finger, i.e. around the same size as the cicada.
- Birds, lots of them and very noisy. Their idea of ‘morning’ is 5 a.m. which doesn’t go down very well with us, however much we like them at other times.
Still around:
- The same butterflies (I guess we’re waiting for them to breed and pupate), a slightly greater number of moths, and a much greater number of mosquitoes (ouch!).
- House spiders indoors and lynx and jumping spiders outdoors, though not so many flower spiders.