More house guests

The bathroom window was the favourite point of entry for most insects at night as it is the only window we left open that doesn't have a fly screen. Not so many guests visit through that window now though, as the thought of our newborn daughter being bit by a disease-carrying mosquito is incentive enough to remember to close it! We have a bath in the back yard with some water plants in it and mosquito eating fish (Australian Pacific Blue-eyes and Chinese White Clouds). Lots of mosquito wrigglers mean no extra food is necessary for the fish. However, I think we need to get a few more fish.

Now this is probably the scariest insect I've seen in the house after the very large brown huntsman. What a lethal looking back end! It was 2-3cm long with a head like a fly, wings like a wasp and... is that back end an ovipositor? It nonchalantly hopped onto the fly swatter from the bathroom ceiling and allowed itself to be flicked out the window.

My underpants on the clothes line seem to be a favourite resting place for moths. This lovely one about 1.5cm long made it into the house in the washing pile.

This beetle impressed us with its break-and-entry skill and stamina. First it managed to push its way past a loose bit of fly screen, then it did laps of the living room in the air. Most beetles just hit the first wall they find and fall to the ground for a rest. When I went to pick it up it hissed at me and was surprisingly strong when resisting being pinned to the ground for a photo (no real pins were used in the taking of this photo)! Is it a female rhinocerus beetle? I've heard these beetles are the strongest insects in the world by body weight. It was 5-6cm long. It seems to match the description in the Queensland Museum fact sheet.

I believe this is a gum tree shield bug, Theseus modestus (ID source - Wildlife of Greater Brisbane). It decided our bathroom basin was the place to quietly expire. Only having 4 of your 6 legs left is probably a good reason to give up.

House guests

Some insects and spiders invite themselves into the house, others are drawn inexorably by the light... and don't the geckos love it!

Unidentified bug about 5-6mm long. This little beastie came in with some tomatoes and strawberries I'd just picked.

Unidentified small spider that enjoys hanging out in ceiling corners. Also about 5-6mm long. It might have freaked out if it realised it was sitting on a fly swatter ;-)

Unidentified moth. Poor moths, they run the gecko gauntlet to get to the light inside and then have nowhere to go. Some end up as play things for the kitties if they move about very much.

In the front right corner

Our main vege garden is between the neighbour's fence and the right-hand side of the house. Just around the corner at the front of the house a hibiscus is growing. Forward of the vege garden towards the road there is a retaining wall that wraps around the front of the block and a small part of the RHS. It encloses a garden bed about 1m wide. I took all these pictures in about a 10m square area around the front, RHS of the house.

Unidentified spider poised between tomato leaves on a single strand of web.

This Scorpion-tailed spider (Arachnura higginsi - ID source - Spiders of the Greater Brisbane Region. A Queensland Museum Wild Guide) reveals its true nature by untucking its legs. Its web stretched between lower stems of the Hibiscus.

I don't know what these spiders feed on but it was looking very much like a grub or caterpillar trapped in a web the way it was waving its tail about. What an odd shaped tail! It looks a bit like a flower with the petals torn off.

Yellow-shouldered Ladybird on sunflower leaves (Apolinus lividigaster - ID source OzAnimals). I must be getting pretty close to having the minimum six species of Ladybird in my garden that indicates no pesticide use (as stated in the Garden Guardians) . This lovely little beastie feeds on aphids.

Unidentified caterpillar. This one was sitting on my Eremophila in the retaining wall garden bed. It's still a small plant so I'm not sure I'll let it stay there.

More insects in our garden

The more you look for insects and spiders in the garden the more you find. It's a pity you don't always have the camera on hand. Some times the little buggers (pun foolishly intended) are just too quick or camera shy. I've missed a shot of a large butterfly that may have been an Evening Brown, a fast-moving bright red wasp that may have been a Spider Wasp, a small spider trying to take a ride on a sheet into the washing machine and a small swarm of wasps checking out our Caliandra shrub for prey. Ants can be really hard to focus on but one played an accidental cameo role in the shot of another insect today.

Ant on Frangipani. It might be a Banded Sugar Ant (Camponotus consobrinus - ID source OzAnimals) as it looks like it is herding aphids. I haven't been looking for the nest.

Unidentified bug on Frangipani. Check out the antennae!

Unidentified wasp on Caliandra. I could not work out if it was fighting a large ant that refused to be paralysed or if one of the sexes in wingless and it is mating. No idea.

I think this is the home of the wasps that were checking out the Caliandra with one left on guard duty. They are probably Polistes spp.. (ID source - Wildlife of Greater Brisbane) as their nest is the right shape and it is located under the eaves of our laundry area.

Unidentified silvery chrysalis on Caliandra stem. I've also seen a couple on the wires of the clothes line.

Coding the forest

It can be a struggle to get a consistent, durable overview of any complex programming project. It's easy to get lost in the trees of 

• entity, data access, visual interface and control classes,
• class interrelationships and dependencies, 
  
• collections of objects instantiated from classes, 
  
• private and public methods, 
  
• the abstract interface classes, virtual methods, method overrides, 
  
• algorithms, code patterns, configuration, custom types, structures,
  
• managed vs. unmanaged code,
• single vs. multiple inheritance,
• UML, ERD, flow charts,
• model-driven programming, functional programming and object-oriented programming,
  

and the list goes on and on.

You could say that the programmer is spoilt for choice. However, making and sticking to choices about how to solve a problem or set of problems is complicated by there being multiple ways of doing the same thing. Granted, some ways are more efficient or 'elegant'. There is also the right tool for job. An uncompiled scripting language can be the best choice for proto-typing. However, it can be a pain to debug if there is much data transfer going on between different parts of the program. Of course, keeping each part of the program simple and making sure you test thoroughly before moving on helps a great deal. Conversely, the simpler each part is, the more parts you have to manage.

Add the client to the above and their level of understanding about what you are doing. They may believe that production code should be as quick to write as a simple prototype. They may have heard that a UML diagram can be automatically converted into code but not realise that your software can't actually do that. Their 'nephew' doing work experience at IBM may have created this fantastic web site in a couple of days so why can't you? Doesn't everybody use the same tools?

Back on topic... I'm the kind of guy that likes to keep the overview constantly in view but how do you do that when your mind is already staggering under the weight and number of parts? It doesn't matter how clever you are or think you are. At some point parts will drop off your concious radar.

Keeping in mind that your mind can only juggle 5-7 concepts conciously at one time how can you break down any project into just 5 parts? 1. Data input. 2. Data transport. 3. Data manipulation. 4. Data storage. 5. Data display.

First-hand experiences

Now here is a cause worth supporting. The Kitchen Garden Foundation in Victoria is teaching kids to grow food themselves as part of their primary school curriculum. Incorporate a bit of science and heh presto you have people with informed opinions about some of the natural world. I believe it's really important to expose kids, especially kids growing up in the city to as much of the natural world as possible, as early as possible. We humans are clever in many ways but often we need to experience things first-hand to really appreciate them. Reading a book or watching a video supplements our understanding but can never replace the strong foundation of touching, seeing, smelling and breathing the air of a new experience.

Thriving

Our vege patch is thriving with all the recent rain. This is mirrored in the insect population. Fortunately we have many active predators to keep the vege destroyers in check. A great web site for identifying your bugs in Brisbane is Brisbane Insects and Spiders.

Brown Paper wasps (Ropalidia revolutionalis - ID source FAMILY VESPIDAE, Polistinae - Paper Wasps) are hard at work in the luffa vine. I swear one was keeping an eye on me while the others worked on the larvae chambers.

Chateau paper wasp

I saw another beautiful wasp with irredesent blue wings having a drink from our outside bathtub but wasn't quick enough to retrieve the camera. It was probably 3 times the size of the paper wasps.

The face of evil. One of the few ladybirds that eat plants rather than defending them. They especially like potato and tomato leaves. Beware the 28 spots of Henosepilachna vigintioctopunctata! Identification source 28-spotted Potato Ladybird.

This ladybird eats fungus (Illeis galbula - Identification source The Garden Guardians by Jane Davenport) and is helping to protect one of my pumpkin vines. I notice that the family name for Illeis is Coccinellidae. It could be related to the beetle that is crushed up for the famous blue dye.

Don't know what this bug sitting on a rockmelon leaf is yet.

House inhabitants

We had a visitor in early October. At first we thought it was a gigantic mozzie but it is a Crane Fly. It's harmless, doesn't feed in this adult stage and spends its juvenile life in water.

Our first human child (we have two kitty kids) is due today! She too will emerge from an aquatic, amniotic existence to enter air-breathing life, luckily with a much warmer welcome awaiting her. She doesn't know about the welcoming party however and may not arrive for a few days yet. Only 5% of human babies arrive on their due date. I think the anticipation is keeping me on a constant, mild adrenaline rush. Fingers crossed but NOT legs crossed she arrives soon.

Spider, fly, you know the drill

I'm used to spiders hanging around (no pun intended) for a photo but didn't realise that flies are posers as well. They were quite happy with the minimum 10cm for a macro shot.

Fly posing on strawberry flower while cleaning its back 'legs'.

Fly catching the afternoon sun on a leaf's edge... OK, OK I'm lying. I used the flash.

One of our many vegetable patch guardian spiders. It is most likely a Silver Orb Spider (Leucauge granulata - Identification source OzAnimals and Spiders of the Greater Brisbane Region, a Queensland Museum Wild Guide).

I've only ever seen one other live huntsman larger than this one. It is most likely a Brown Huntsman (Heteropoda jugulans - Identification source OzAnimals). Normally I'm OK with spiders but when this species gets to this size (11-12cm across) they hop instead of run. Fortunately it responded well to an invitation to step outside with some non-lethal guidance from a broom. It's hard to believe that a wasp less than half the size of this one's body (without the legs) can take it on and win but I've seen that too. The wasp then nipped off all its legs before flying away with it.

This little cutey attempted to hitch-hike on my shin.

Doing well

All the wet weather is good for the trees and bugs
I'm seeing lots and lots of vegetable grasshoppers (Attractomorpha similis - Identification source - Wildlife of Greater Brisbane)

Vegetable grasshopper munching on my sunflowers

The Poincinia trees are doing really well. Every one in the street is flowering heavily.

Poinciana flower

Garden pics 3

Didn't do much gardening yesterday as it was a stinking hot day. Renee and I both enjoyed the storm that finally arrived around 3pm.

This St Andrew's Cross spider (Argiope keyserlingi - identified using Wildlife of Greater Brisbane produced by the Queensland Museum) likes to 'hang' near our under-cover clothes line.

No idea what this sunflower resident bug is.

We've been having quite a bit of rain over the last few weeks so several species of fungi have been popping up.

Another ex-resident of our growing sunflowers. I've thought sometimes in the past that TV docos showing caterpillars munching away were sped up. Not so!

Beneficial insects

I highly recommend a beginner's book for looking after your garden kingdom called The Garden Guardians by Jane Davenport. Jane takes impressive macro pictures. Forget about using pesticides and start managing your real-life insect kingdom on the hop, crawl, fly and scuttle. I love my PlayStation and PC games but this could be just as attention grabbing!

Jane's favourite, a ladybird. This one is sitting on a sunflower leaf. Beneficial. It is most likely a Striped Ladybird (Micraspis frenata - Identification source Striped Ladybird)

Another sunflower leaf inhabitant. NOT beneficial except as food for a bird or predatory insect. It is most likely a Hedge Grasshopper (Valanga irregularis) nymph (baby). Identification source is OzAnimals.

This little beastie was sitting on a rockmelon leaf. Not sure what it is although from the way it was behaving (it looked like it was sucking on something) and its position on the leaf vein I'd say it is a sap sucker.

Walking to and from the shops

So many ground hugging plants pass unnoticed as the showier, larger plants grab your attention with larger flowers and stronger perfumes, but these small, tough colonists of disturbed soil can be just as beautiful.

I probably would not have noticed this little camouflaged insect if I hadn't seen it land. No idea what kind of insect it is.

This little skink (lizard) obligingly stayed put for a photo from only a metre away. The pickings must be good for it after all the recent rain. I think it is an Eastern Water Skink, not sure.

Our local council has done a great job in revegetating the creek banks with native grasses and trees instead of the tangle of vines and dense thickets of weeds.

Garden pics 2

Spare a thought for the poor chook that laid the egg on the left. What was she not thinking?! Renee (my lovely wife) pointed out to me that if you turn a jewel bug upside down it looks very much like a scary mask.

Double-trouble yoker

Jewel bug scary monster mask

Hibiscus flower

Different Hibiscus flower

Take a closer look

Greetings
I intend this blog to be reasonably free-form musings and events from daily life. This first entry is inspired by our garden and the things that you can see if you take a few moments to look closely. If I hadn't been trying to get a photo of a hibiscus flower I would never have spotted the jewel bugs. The hairs on the stems around the watermelon flower are trapping moisture. The garlic flower turned out to have a resident protective spider. The luffa? flower has resident ants. I'm constantly drawn back into the garden by the things that I may stumble across and a simple pleasure in watching things grow.

Jewel bugs (Hibiscus Harlequin Bugs)(Tectocoris diopthalmus)

Watermelon flower

Garlic guard spider

I think it is a 'Common Lynx Spider' - Oxyopes sp. after looking at the Brisbane Insects and Spiders web site.

Garlic flower

Luffa? flower. Cucumber and luffa flowers look very similar but seeing the fruit grow I'm leaning towards Luffa. Check out Luffa.info. The female and male immature flowers look the same as those on the luffa.info site as well. A good picture of a cucumber flower can be found here.