I just wanted to share some of the interesting,mysterious, and miscellaneous flora and fauna here in Australia. Nathan and I went for a wander in the Perth Hills (the old mountains east of the city). During our amble, we heard the laughing Kookaburra (the bird to the left). You know in jungle soundtracks the sound you think are monkeys....I think its really kookaburras. they sound just like that. Also, Nathan almost stepped on this little critter. I don't know what it is...probably a rat with big ears. BUT, since we don't have our guide to Australian mammals, (we mailed them in December and they haven't arrived...or they have arrived but the post office has sent them back to the US) we are going to count on it being something exotic.\

The plants here are amazing too. Here's a couple, I don't know what they are either. But believe me what I don't know about plants here outweighs what I do by a SIGNIFICANT margin. I've learned so far that if you don't know what something is, you guess it is a gum (like eucalytpus), a wattyl, or a banksia. So, um, its a banksia....yeah.















Parks are everywhere here, so there's lots to look at--lots of the Parks are great about identifying species (although they all seem to be gum, wattyl, banksia, so I can never remember). What else is great is that several of the parks have roving summer art exhibitions. One park near us has a "drive through gallery" with sculpture in the park. Or next week, there is a sculpture exhibition at the beach. Our next door neighbors are both artists and one of them is exhibiting at the beach. So, we are definitely planning to do a photo safari there. In the meantime, here is one of the sculpture peices at Mundaring Community Garden.