The summer has brought out all manner of strange creatures I've never encountered before. Huge black nasty bugs that look like they bite, and they try incessantly. Worse than the flies, and they look downright dangerous. One thing you learn quickly here is that anything that looks dangerous - probably is. 

Curl worms - we've found a bunch of these in the yard. It's a grub, but these things are monstrous, half an inch thick and three-four inches long. Similar to the tomato bugs you'd find on occasion in the states. I hear the aborigines eat these when there's nothing else in the bush to live off of.

Think I'll pass.

Next, I think they're called 'cicadas' (sp?)  - which are the loudest cricket like things I've ever heard. If you wander through a grove of trees, the sound level can approach the threshold of pain. You can't sleep if one of these decides to sit outside your bedroom window.

I've already described the 'R2D2 bird'.  But the summer has brought even stranger noises. There's a 'crying baby' bird that sounds like a newborn kid with soiled britches. And now - all day I've been hearing the sound of a 56k modem connecting and establishing sync. It's coming from outside the window. Walking around the campus, it turns out that it's coming from the treetops, not from an office window. I'm just gonna' call it a 'modem bird' until I figure out a better name...