Buster is the unofficial mascot of The Backyard Farm. We adopted him when he was about 5 (we think), and he's been very active in the backyard ever since. His diet includes strawberries fresh from the bush, and the occasional stray lump of cow poo. His main garden duty is digging holes, although he has a habit of doing this after seedlings have been planted.

Buster found this guy hanging out under our house. I suspect he was attempting to make it to our pond so he could eat our tadpoles! We relocated him through our local vet, as we were concerned that Buster would try to “play” with the turtle and hurt it in the process. These turtles are common across the east coast of Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, but he was a rare find in our garden.

The laugh of the Kookaburra is said to forewarn of rain, and these guys were certainly enjoying themselves. They are regular visitors and make short work of lizards, insects and other small prey, helping to maintain a balance in the garden.

Noisy, pushy and pretty damn good looking, Rainbow Lorikeets are a common visitor to our garden. They love feasting on the nectar found in the native flowering trees in the garden, such as the flowering gum (pictured), grevilleas and eucalyptus.

While I was at high school, rather than having posters of movie stars in my room, I had posters of frogs. I managed to convince my parents to build a frog pond in our backyard, and at the moment it is host to this little guy. He's a Striped Marsh Frog, which is a common species in the eastern seaboard of Australia. Aside from being beautiful, the frogs in the garden help to eat insects and slugs and snails - all part of maintaining biodiversity in The Backyard Farm! This guy was relaxing under a rock next to the pond, but in summer they are much more active and produce plenty of noise after a summer storm.