Amphibians
Then there was this other surprise encounter. The large Striped Marsh Frog shown above turned up while digging near a water heater in a tiny courtyard at an inner-city terrace in Sydney. I definitely did not expect to find frogs living so far from streams and the bush. This was another case where the colours of the frog matched its surroundings. We were careful not to crush the frog with our digging tools and to leave it in its spot.
And more...
I could fill a lot more pages than this with photos of the kind of critters you might find in even the most built-up areas. For example, I remember waiting for a train one day, at Waverton station close to the CBD of Sydney. The commuters looked bored like they always did but I was fascinated. Because behind them, inches away there was a wall crawling with literally thousands of millipedes, beautifully camouflaged. I've never seen such astonishing numbers of them (millipedes, not commuters). The funny thing is, a lot of the commuters would have been horrified to know they were standing so close to so much invertbrate action. But most people don't look carefully enough.
I often used to notice rats scampering around the train lines in Sydney's Central Station too. They are completely covered in the grey dust that surrounds the train tracks so they blended in almost perfectly with the environment. I never saw anyone else notice them. But anyone with average eye sight would have been able to see them.
If you look for them. |