Cicada and Spider and Olive-backed Oriole

You know Christmas is on the horizon when you start hearing the loud trill,  (can be up to 120 db), from the cicadas. They're in full throttle now, as each day warms up, so too, do the cicadas!  I can hear them now as I type this at 8.38 a.m. (really 7.38 a.m. since we're in daylight saving).

this Cicada I might guess to be the Redeye, was seen at Mill Creek, Dharug N.P.  And if it's not the Redeye, let me know what to re-name it won't you?

matching up perfectly then, to this photo I'd taken at home a couple weeks ago of a cast-away cicada shell.  Pretty amazing I think how they evolve, our Australian species (of which there are over 200), spending six or seven years underground, and looking quite prehistoric.

St Andrews Cross Spider

late yesterday afternoon I was early enough to catch this spider starting some weaving for the night ahead.  There's many webs to dodge of a morning strung across pathways that I walk through in the back gardens - I remember in my teens there was a Gossamer brand hairspray; now I know how it got that name!  I walk about slowly waving a stick ahead of me some times, and think if ever someone caught me in the act, they'd think I'm casting a magic spell out there.

I'd written to Ron Atkinson at The Find-a-Spider Guide last night when preparing this post, since I couldn't locate it for myself there.  I hadn't realized until his reply just now, that this photo is in fact, the underside of the spider!  So colourful for bottoms up I thought; I hadn't looked so intently when I had the camera in my face it was a matter of zooming in and getting what I could.

Ron says "it is an orb weaver, and that it is considered to be essentially harmless to humans."  I liked that, since I choose not to use chemicals in the gardens, nor snail baits for fear the blue-tongue lizards suffer the consequences.  So, back to nature........

Link to Ron's St. Andrews Cross Spider 'top side' (right-way up).

not sure if the same spider had done this one also, would they have more than one web, or moreso another spider has created this, also late yesterday

Beside the larger web, to the right, there is a second web facing the opposite direction.  When you look closely into the webs, it is amazing really the straightness of lines; so much work. In the background is a flowering crepe myrtle; the bees are loving it.

For the past month , way up in the angophora tree, I hear the somewhat mournful repetitive song from an Olive-backed Oriole.  He is in this picture, but let me crop from it for you ...

right in there

as good as I could get on this one; now if it were a pelican, chances are it'd been a lot better.