Royal Botanic Gardens

A short trip south to Cranbourne brought us to the Royal Botanic Gardens. On the way into the parking lot, we encountered several signs warning us to be alert for animals.

One animal we are told to watch for is a snake.

While walking around in the gardens, we would periodically come across a sign such as this.

And indeed, when leaving, we did indeed see a real, live snake.

This particular fellow is an Eastern Tiger Snake. Notice below that this snake is "highly venomous". Wikipedia claims the untreated bite is fatal in 40-60% of the cases. Just to get your hackles up, killing one of these animals is illegal and get you a fine and possibly jail time. Think about what a country boy from the US would have to say to that!

Of course, the gardens did have flowers and, so far as I know, none of these are poisonous.

And there were also birds. Here is the Welcome Swallow. Normally, this animals are nearly impossible to photograph because it is constant, erratic flight. But I got lucky when a couple of them came for a rest on a fence and spread their wings. We've seen these around a lot, but this is first chance I'd had to get a non-blurry photo of one.

A new bird today was the New Holland Honey Eater. This bird likes the Kangaroo Paw flowers for their nectar.

A very pleasant place with a wide variety of flowers and animals. We will certainly visit here again.