Suburban wild life

Son #1 and his family live in suburban New South Wales, Australia. Which is obviously a scary place, by the look of this recent visitor:

It's a diamond python. Not poisonous, kills its prey (small lizards, birds, possums) by constriction and suffocation. From the look of it, scared out of its wits by young Australian children. Males twice as large as the females (the snake not the children), so we'd need another for comparison to discern this one's sex. I probably shouldn't scare my grandkids by saying that they (the snakes) typically lay 25 eggs at a time and are "known to occupy the roof space of suburban homes", according to Mr Wiki. Thank goodness they (the grandkids) don't read this blog.

Australia is home to around 100 species of poisonous snake and large numbers of very scary spiders, although only two of the latter - redbacks and funnel webs -  are potentially lethal to humans. Antivenoms are apparently widely available in this calm and peaceful country.

Just to prove this blog post hasn't been sponsored by Tourism Australia, I should mention the box jellyfish - danger rating 10/10 by australiangeographic.com.au - the honey bee (9/10), the bull shark and of course the infamous saltwater crocodile (only 8/10; they need to up their game). I encountered one of the latter in Alice Springs in 2007:

I was invited to feed Terry but decided to watch instead.

In contrast, in Cornwall we avoid the sea when the jellyfish and occasional (harmless, we are told) basking sharks are around, avoid bulls and rams in the mating season and generally curse the behaviour and noise of the seagulls. That's it. Thankfully.