Category Archives: Not a bird
Black Jezebel butterfly
Out for a walk at Manly Dam Park north of Sydney this morning, I saw this pretty little butterfly. It’s a Black Jezebel (Delias nigrina). The undersides of its wings are quite colourful: black with yellow and red markings and some white snowy patches. The body is a fluffy yellow.
When the butterfly is flitting around, it looks entirely white, because you see only the top of its wings. In this video, you see glimpses of the white uppersides of the wings:
Moody pics of Huntsman spider on my bannister
Early one morning a few weeks ago, I encountered a huntsman spider on the bannister of a staircase inside my house. I was coming up the stairs from below, and was moving my hand along the top of the railing as I went. Then my head came level with the railing, and there was the spider at eye level.
First wildlife close encounter of the day, and I hadn’t even been outside yet! Life in Oz. 🙂
This is a big spider, about the size of the palm of my hand.
It looked as surprised as I was!
It was still dark and the lighting in this area of the house isn’t bright. I didn’t like using the flash on my phone too much, in case it damaged the spider’s eyes, so I found a torch. Hence the bluesy tone of this next photo:
Huntsman spiders are big and scary, but they avoid contact with people if they can, and their venom isn’t too bad if they do bite. They won’t kill you, like some of the other Australian spiders.
Huntsmen generally run away from humans. They don’t go out of their way to bite unless actively threatened. This one might have had good reason to feel threatened by my hand coming towards it along the bannister, though!
And though we see them fairly often and I know they always run away, I do admit to uttering a restrained (not so much) gasp when I saw this one at eye level.
I was heading out for a walk, so I left the spider there, on the bannister, with a scribbled note next to it saying “spider” and an eloquent arrow, so that my husband wouldn’t have the same close encounter that I did.
When I came back, the spider had gone and my husband hadn’t seen it. Who knows where it is now? I’m sure I’ll see it again some early morning!
Large net-casting spider
While doing some gardening a couple of weeks ago, I came across this large, unique-looking spider. It was on my green bin, where I was about to deposit a load of garden trimmings. I didn’t want to hurt the spider, so I carefully moved it onto the nearby vegetation, after taking a couple of photos.
Here’s the spider, with my finger for scale:
It has its legs neatly clumped together in four groups of two. The body is long and thin, with two little humps on the sides about half way down the length. It’s head, seen from above, forms a neat triangle with two bulbs at the front.
Today I spent some time figuring out what type of spider it is. It turns out to be a net-casting spider. I wish I’d know that at the time! Evidently the spider has two huge eyes (under those bulbs seen here from above) and its face looks a little scary. As well as earning the name net-casting spiders, they’re also called ogre-faced spiders! I wish I’d got down onto the ground and looked at the spider from below, so that I could see its eyes and ogre face.
Here’s another picture, without the finger this time:
Why the name net-casting spider? These creatures spin a small square of web each night, which they hold in their front legs and cast over their prey. That’s why they have big eyes: to be able to see their prey in the dark.
Fascinating. It’s a jungle out there.
St Andrew’s Cross spider mother and babies
In mid January, in the heat of an Australian summer, a St Andrew’s Cross spider built her web outside my window.
The photo shows the underneath of the spider, a few blobs of dead insect matter, and the characteristic thickened web lines radiating out from the spider’s legs. This cross-shaped formation is what gives the spider its name.
A few days after she arrived, she created an egg sac in the corner of the window sill. The sac was about the size of the top part of my finger, and had an unusual spoon shape. I wasn’t sure what it was — maybe some form of wasp nest? I didn’t really want one of those just outside the window, which is always open in the summer heat, so I moved the little sac down into another part of the garden.
The next day, another egg sac appeared, looking exactly the same as the first one. I decided it must belong to the spider, who had now moved her web even closer to the egg sac. So I let it be.
Here it is from a different angle:
Two weeks later, the spiders hatched! I saw them for the first time early one morning. A cloud of baby St Andrews Cross spiders, just hatched, glowing in the early sun:
The mother hung above on her web, silhouetted against the rising sun:
Evidently the mother will eat the babies if any of them strays onto her web. She’s also partial to chomping off a leg or two from the male spider while mating.
Nine hours later, it was mid afternoon and the sun had moved off the web. The babies had clumped together in a different pattern:
Early the next morning, the cloud-like formation was back. There was still a bit of clumping, though, as shown by the shadows:
It’s a little like a slow-motion kaleidoscope!
The next day, all the little ones were gone, leaving behind an empty shell of an egg sac. Baby St Andrew’s Cross spiders travel by floating away on a strand of silk.
The mother is still at my window, safe and sound.
Bugs: Yellow, orange, and black stripes
A couple of days ago, I saw a pretty bug on the window of my car. It was long, and striped with yellow, orange, and black. It had long feelers which it waved around, and large feet.
On looking closer, I noticed that it’s not one but two bugs. There’s a small bug on top of the larger one. I’m guessing the smaller one is a male and that they’re mating. Or maybe it’s a baby bug hitching a ride on an adult? Here they are again, from a slightly different angle:
Does anyone know anything about these bugs? I saw them on Sydney’s Northern beaches in late spring.
Update on 30 November 2021: It’s an Imperial Soldier Beetle (Chauliognathus imperialis). Sightings of this beetle seem to be quite rare. Thank you to Hamish Robertson for the identification. And indeed, the smaller beetle is the male, the larger is the female.
The weird case of the bagworm
(Not a bird, but most likely something that a bird would find interesting!)
Bagworms, sometimes called case moths, are interesting creatures. The larvae of the moth surround themselves with a case made of silk for protection. Then they go one step further: they attach leaves and sticks to the case, making a home that looks quite weird. Some of the cases can be large: up to 12 centimetres long.
I came across just such a case recently, when walking through a burnt area of bush. (The cases are hard to spot when the bush is lush and healthy.) I guess this larva was travelling around looking for food, and found itself exposed on a black tree trunk.
This particular case was quite large, at 11 centimetres long. At the top is the patch of silk that the larva uses to attach the case to the tree. When moving around, the larva detaches from the tree, pokes its legs out at the top of the case, and drags the case around with it.
I think is is most likely a Saunders’ case moth, also called the large bagworm (Metura elongatus), which is found in eastern Australia where I live.
Here’s a view from another angle:
In the zoomed-out view, the bagworm is half way up the blackened tree trunk in the middle of the picture:
Spotted at this location in Manly Dam park, on the east coast of Australia. I’ve posted recently about other bagworms that I’ve encountered.
Spitfire Sawfly larva – the caterpillar that wasn’t
(Not a bird, but a creature that birds no doubt encounter either on the ground or high up in a gum tree.)
Walking along a bush path the other day, I saw a strange-looking caterpillar. It was large and black with short yellow spikes. Its front end was quite pudgy, but its body tapered off toward the back end.
When moving along, it often lifted up its front end to show its yellow legs:
After doing a bit of research, I realized that this interesting creature is a larva, not a caterpillar. Specifically, it’s the larva of the Spitfire Sawfly. Sawflies are related to wasps, ants, and bees.
Despite the name “Spitfire”, these larvae don’t actually spit anything, but if you touch them you can get a burning sting from the spikes. The larvae also spew out a thick yellow liquid from their mouths when threatened, but the liquid isn’t harmful. They often collect together in big clusters on a gum tree.
Here’s a short video of the larva moving across the forest floor:
Diamond Python in Banksia tree
A couple of days ago, when walking along a bush bath in the Manly Dam park, I met a man carrying an empty cloth bag attached to a stick. I said hallo, received a friendly greeting in return, then asked him what he was capturing. He said, “Releasing, not capturing.”
“OK, what are you releasing?” said I.
“A Diamond Python.” When I responded with a delighted smile rather than a fearful gasp, he said, “Would you like to see it?” He led me down a path and pointed to the snake, which was making its way happily up a Heath Banksia tree.
The markings on the snake’s skin are amazingly intricate. And such a gorgeous face:
The snake catcher said that the snake had been found on the roof of someone’s car in a nearby suburb. He’d been called to remove the snake, and Manly Dam park is a great place to release creatures like this.
Diamond Pythons are related to Carpet Pythons, and are native to the eastern coast of Australia (which is where I am). They’re the most southerly occurring python in the world. This one was about two metres long, I think. They can grow up to three metres.
Here’s a short video showing the snake’s lazy movement as it slides along the branches of the Heath Banksia tree:
Thank you to Chris Zabriskie for the video soundtrack:
What True Self, Feels Bogus, Let’s Watch Jason X by Chris Zabriskie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Source: http://chriszabriskie.com/reappear/
Artist: http://chriszabriskie.com/
What about the birds, you may ask? Since this is primarily a blog about birds, where do they fit in? Diamond Pythons do eat birds, but their typical prey is small animals and reptiles. The python lies in wait for its prey, sometimes for days on end. Then the snake snatches the creature, wraps itself around it, and smothers it to death before swallowing it whole.
Beautiful red and brown Orb Weaving Spider
When walking along bush paths, especially early in the morning, I often walk through large spider webs spun across the path. Not infrequently, I end up with a spider in my hair or on my clothes.
Today I spotted the web and its occupant in time to avoid a collision! The spider was a Garden Orb Weaver (Eriophora sp). This individual was quite lovely, with red upper legs changing to black as they reached its body. Look at that cute furry head!
This was a large spider, its body about 2 cm long. We often see Garden Orb Weavers in our area, but I haven’t seen one with this colouring before. They come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and colours. (In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone decides to do more research into these spiders and split up the classification a bit.) Here’s a side view of the one I saw yesterday:
I carefully walked around the web, using a tried-and-true method of waving a stick in front of me to detect stray strands of silk, and photographed the spider from the other side:
Garden Orb Weaving Spiders aren’t keen to bite you. If they do bite you, the symptoms are usually mild, usually limited to pain and swelling at the site of the bite. If you have worse symptoms or are concerned, seek medical advice. I haven’t yet been bitten. Long may that happy state of affairs last!
Location of the spider: Manly Dam Park, New South Wales, Australia: 33°46’51.5″S 151°14’51.0″E.
What about the birds, you may ask? Since this is primarily a blog about birds, where do they fit in? Birds do eat these spiders. Recently, an Australian Noisy Miner was extremely interested in a large Orb Weaver outside my window. The bird approached along the telephone line, then leapt into the air and hovered about a metre away from the spider. For some reason, the bird abandoned the attack. Maybe there wasn’t enough room for the bird to fly in, grab the spider, then swoop away before hitting the window.
Bluebottle jellyfish can sting even when dead
Yesterday, I went for a stroll along Manly beach, north of Sydney. A line of beached Bluebottle jellyfish ran along the length of the beach.
(The only bird in this post is that little Silver Gull, peacefully asleep next to the stingers.)
Bluebottles are also called Pacific Men-of-War, I guess because the floating part looks a little like a ship at sail. Viewed close up, bluebottles are quite beautiful.
On top is a bag formed of gas-filled tubules that keep the bluebottle afloat and upright. Here’s another bluebottle, with a purple tinge on the top ridge of the floater:
Walking along the beach was a little tricky, because we had to dodge the bluebottles and their long, stinging tentacles that stretched out across the sand.:
Even when a bluebottle is dead, the tentacles can still give you a nasty sting. Tens of thousands of Australians are stung each year. Luckily, the stings of the Bluebottles found on the non-tropical, east coast of Australia are generally not fatal, though they are very painful.
Although we call them jellyfish, a bluebottle is in fact not a jellyfish. Each bluebottle is actually four different types of animals living together as a colony. There’s the creature that forms the gas-filled bag on top, keeping the jellyfish afloat. A second type of creature provides the tentacles, which sting the jellyfish’s prey and then draw it up to the digestive polyps, which are the third type of creature. The fourth creature provides the reproductive system.
A group of bluebottles is called an armada, like a fleet of ships. Mass beachings happen when the wind blows the bluebottles ashore. A weird thing I learned today: each bluebottle is built with its top part (the gas bag) positioned either to the right or to the left of the rest of the creature. Evidently, this affects the steering and helps to ensure that only half of an armada gets stranded on the beach when the wind forces them ashore.
It’s sad to see so many creatures perish. Still, I’m glad I had the opportunity to see them up close and learn about them.
Sydney Birder 