Smirty: I have, at various times, had spiders, snakes, mantids, and especially scorpions living with me. I really don't like keeping creatures in cages smaller than the space they would inhabit in the wild, so things that never travel far, like the small scorpions, I have kept in a big fishtank full of rocks. I'd never keep something like a mouse-spider indoors, because in the wild they migrate, and they wouldn't like it. I'd never keep a bird in a cage unless it was hurt and I was patching it up. I'll keep fish in a pond or an old bathtub, but not in a tank or a bowl. Spiders and mantids just lived loose in the house. Snakes either lived outside, or in the case of the green tree snake that moved into my hut in Far North Queensland, just hung out in the roof. The structure was open on three sides, so she could go in and out as she pleased.
Where I live now there are spiders, snakes, lizards, frogs, scorpions, birds, possums and lots of other small wildlife in the garden and in the reserve over the road. A small mob of wallabies regularly visit my garden on the way from their daytime spot by our tiny river to their evening grazing on a neighbour's farm. They nibble on my roses, succulents and broccoli. And they love chicory, sadly! I don't have any indoor pets apart from two cats, and I keep them in at night, for the sake of the other wildlife. My husband is a bit nervous of creatures, so if a spider comes inside it is escorted off the premises, generally by me.
Mayabird: Chickadees, yes. So feisty and brave. They remind me a bit of the blue wrens we have here, and the silvereyes and New Holland honeyeaters. They nest in my Grevillea bushes which are dense and spiky. Nothing can get at them, not even a cat. And when a hawk or a butcher-bird turns up all these small birds band together to mob it and drive it off. No fear whatever.
