Wildlife in our garden

Sparrows and swallows we have known in England but we have encountered some unfamiliar creatures in our Cypriot back garden.

There are sun-loving lizards who sit on the rockery and the wall and then scuttle away; locusts, and praying mantis. We christened one rather splendid preying mantis who had clearly just eaten a sizeable meal the "queen of the bush" as she took up residence in one of the shrubs in the garden. Another built an egg sac on the back of our post box. Come to think of it perhaps it was the same female and she'd previously been digesting her mate! After a couple of months a tribe of weeny mantis emerged.

Some lizards have made it into the house. One lived under the dishwasher for several weeks; we named it Slinky. A gecko, Shrimpy, may still be lurking upstairs providing pest control. Salmon pink and almost translucent with beady dark eyes it was first spotted clinging to the overhang of the top stair.

Other things we've spotted and managed to capture on camera are a big black beetle and a tiny frog with a big leap.

But perhaps the most amazing sight, and the most alarming, was the whip snake. Being a girlie my immediate reaction was of course to shriek, get the children indoors and shut the doors! But once I'd regained my composure and ascertained that snakes found in Cyprus are rarely poisonous to humans I went for a closer look. The snake was in fact in the process of constricting something. I couldn't tell if it was a rodent or a bird.

I really must dig out some facts and useful links for Cyprus wildlife. It has been interesting seeing new things but I do miss the English landscape and particularly the birdsong which is so evocative. I caught a snippet on the CBeebies website of all places the other day of woodland sounds. I want my robins, blackbirds, tits and wood pigeons back!