They were not the only beautiful creatures that I came across earlier this year. I was able to lie headfirst in one of our lavender plants, using a reflector to light the engrossed insects while I snapped away happily. That was the case with the two Greenish Grass-darts that top this post. Occasionally, I am lucky because these tiny animals go about their business oblivious to the whir of my camera drive snapping their private moments. But I console myself that they can’t understand that a hulking shape getting nearer is no threat to them because even a herbivorous animal can still accidentally tread on a fragile, tiny creature ending its life right there. I feel frustrated when they flee from my lens, don’t they understand that I mean them no harm, indeed I just want to photographically capture their stunning life form to display to anybody who will look. Do they even notice or do they see the red bricks of our house the same as sandstone rocks out in the scrub. I sometimes wonder, when I watch them go about their lives, if they register that our garden seems different to the expansive bush not far away. I don’t know how many different species of insects and spiders inhabit the tiny bit of nature that we cultivate in our garden but they are a constant source of amazement to me. Despite the difficulty in finding animals it was nice to be out and I hope that you enjoy the photographs below. I really enjoyed the brief encounter during a visit when it was a challenge to find many animals.

After a few seconds of this meeting she shifted weight, jumping off around me into the scrub that I had just come from. The sun was almost directly behind my shoulder, nicely lighting her eyes. I was too close for my lens to get her whole body so I focused on her head. While she was looking at me I raised my camera carefully to take some photos. She stared at me, possibly considering what I was doing.

She stood up on her hind legs, taken aback a little by this human unexpectedly in front of her. I stopped when I noticed the movement but the kangaroo was still moving, abruptly halting her progress just five metres from me. I was walking through some light scrub heading towards a dam when a kangaroo bounded along from the opposite direction. I was fortunate to have such a moment with a female Eastern Grey Kangaroo at Aranda Bushland Nature Reserve one Sunday in October 2021. Sometimes there is an unexpected moment with a wild animal that makes for a special encounter, even with a very common animal.

Gang gang cockatoo predators