Adrian's Reptile World

Adrian's reptile world is a 13 part television series that road tests Australian reptiles as pets.
Now showing on Channel 31 in all capital cities, more information is available
at: www.reptiles.com.au

Many of the episodes include segments shot in the field to show natural habitats as well as some behaviours filmed for the first time. Interviews with many home grown experts across Australia, showing their collections and also with a licensed reptile collector in WA.

Natural Adaptations

Melbourne artist Sally White blends the beauty of Chinese brush painting techniques with the distinctive character of Australia’s native animals and plants in her latest exhibition which runs from 25 February to 15 March at the Chapel off Chapel Gallery in Prahran.

The 36 works in the show range from traditional Chinese subjects such as orchids and gold fish to Australian favorites like the echidna and the gracious dancing brolga.

Sally White says: “In this show I try to capture the spirit and energy of Australian nature as well as pay homage to the great traditions of Chinese art.”

“Language is acknowledged as the window into another culture. But I have discovered in learning Chinese brush painting, or shui mo, that art is equally powerful. For me, the brush is a bridge to a deeper understanding of Chinese culture.”

Sally White, who has been studying with master artist Anthony Sum for five years, recently won Best Exhibit in the annual Angair Art Show in rural Victoria for the second year running.

Chapel off Chapel Gallery Gallery hours
12 Little Chapel Street Monday to Sunday
Prahran 10 am to 5 pm
25 February - 15 March 2009

Spiders - something to enjoy all day, every day

My obsession with spiders continues - and there are plenty of them around the house right now. They are still the same species I describe in "Spiders: learning to love them" - the house spiders, wolf spiders, daddy long-legs, trapdoors and those incredible garden orb weavers - but I constantly get to see new behaviour within metres of where I sit to write this. I become inordinately fond of each one of them.

28 grey house spiders (Badumna longinqua) made their webs on the glass pane doors this year. I have only got two left. One moulted today. Of the other 26, one died when moulting - always a risky business. One went to a white-tailed spider, which, despite a widely believed myth to the contrary, are harmless to us. But they feed on the house spiders. And the other 24 went to the birds. The superb blue wrens and the white-browed scrub wrens sit on the veranda rail and survey the smorgasbord. As each spider grows to the size of a decent meal, a bird attacks - with deadly accuracy - taking my wiggling friends mid-flight back to their nests. I even watched a white-throated tree-creeper climb the brickwork around the door feeding on my spiders. The birds bred well this year. But my two survivors stay hidden behind thick silk mesh, so I have high hopes they will make it to breeding.

There is one of the bigger black house spiders (Badumna insignis) who has made a web against the window in the kitchen - inside. I am much more used to them outside, but she is out on her web a lot of the time in the heat - she built her retreat against the metal window frame! I called her Fenestra (strangling the French for window). She's had male company in the web for a fortnight now.

And I haven't even started on the daddy long-legs with their egg sacs held in their jaws above my head, or the wolf spiders in their burrows just outside the back door. And to think - I used to be an arachnophobe. Never again!