The Wildlife They Don’t Warn You About

By Alex Moore, ANU, Canberra Australia

Before I moved to Canberra everyone I told would mention the spiders and snakes in Australia. I thought I was going to see a huntsman round every corner, but in my nearly 7 months of living here I have seen only one (and that was on K’gari island). What I wasn’t warned about was the birds and their swooping season. This is something that happens from July to November where birds, mainly magpies, are nesting and raising their chicks so they become extremely territorial. I have been on a run around Lake Burley Griffin and had a bird swoop at me and claw at my head just for running past a tree. It is definitely something I wish I had been aware of before I moved because even getting a scooter into town for work a couple of my friends have had some pretty close calls with birds as well.

Another thing I wish I had been given more of a warning about is the flies. These haven’t been as bad in Canberra itself, minus a few that decide to follow you everywhere you go. But over the summer I did two different road trips, one from Sydney to Melbourne and the other along a stretch of the west coast, and the flies were like nothing I had ever experienced before. Special shout out to a coastal walk in Inverloch where they were in my ears the whole way. But the crown was taken by a walk along the sand dunes to see sharks in Coral bay where I think I was covered head to toe the entire time (100% worth it to see the sharks but I think it may be the worst walk of my life). As incredible as these trips were I was definitely naïve to just how annoying flies can be or how bad they are along the coast. So I hope this post allows other people to prepare and invest in some strong bug spray before they come to Australia and start their own summer travels.