Local Wildlife

I promised these pictures some time ago, and while their quality leaves a bit to be desired, the act of taking them more than makes up for it. Here are the 'roos, as they hung out in the center of Woolgoolga, on the very night that this space's future was being debated up the road in the public school.

And on a much less awe-inspiring note, this is a picture of the snail I found on my front steps a few weeks back. He is about the size of a gum-ball, or the tip of my thumb.I have seen several of them around. I mistakenly step on one, too. It made a gross mess right in the middle of my gated entry to my own little court yard, where I hang my laundry, and where I come and go from my apartment. I felt bad:

Finally, I walk the beach almost every day, seeking solace in the sand and the sea. Each day, I pass hundreds, maybe even thousads of little holes in the sand. Each is about as wide as a pencil, and each is surrounded by tens, hundreds, or even thousands of little sandballs, each about as big as the eraser on a pencil. They look like this:

The holes are made by tiny crabs, no bigger than a large house fly. I see them scampering about out of the corner of my eye, but only once in a while. Mostly I see their work, covering the beach for as far as you can see. In this picture, all of the darker sand is those little balls, rolled out of the holes made by these tiny crabs as they burrow in the beach:

I am often amazed at the degree of work it takes to do this, and saddened knowing that each day the tide sweeps in, and washes it all away. Such is the rhythm of life here in Woolgoolga...