Kathy Marks: Something nasty in my back yard

Summer has begun in earnest in this part of the world, and that means long days, sunshine – and marauding spiders. Sydney has an impressive array of arachnids, ranging from the hairy but relatively harmless huntsman to the funnel-web, one of the world's deadliest and most aggressive.

I've yet to encounter a funnel-web in the flesh, but I know enough about them to exercise caution. They like moist, dark places – such as my outdoor laundry, or that pile of used beach towels in the back yard, or those muddy boots left outside overnight.

Unlike most spiders, which scuttle away when disturbed, funnel-webs tend to rear up and bare their fangs. Their venom is highly toxic and can cause death within two hours, so it's not surprising that the spiders have become part of urban folklore, inducing fear and fascination in equal measure.

This year, possibly due to some unseasonal downpours, male funnel-webs – considerably more poisonous than females – have emerged from their burrows a month early to look for mates. Forty specimens have been delivered in recent weeks to a Sydney reptile park that milks them of their venom; normally the park receives only two or three over the course of December and January.

A two-year-old boy had to be flown to a Sydney children's hospital after being bitten by a funnel-web that had crawled into his gumboot. He displayed the classic symptoms – vomiting, convulsions, breathlessness – but recovered after being given a dose of anti-venom.

No one has died from a funnel-web bite since the antidote was developed in 1981. Still, Sydneysiders would prefer not to meet one of these intimidating creatures. One species, the paperbark funnel-web, has a bite so lethal that one victim required 17 ampoules of anti-venom.

Sharks? Fair dinkum ...

If the back yard is a dangerous place, then so, potentially, is the beach. I rarely swim without thinking about sharks. Yet I swim nonetheless. Has the locals' stoicism rubbed off on me? Yesterday, three popular beaches were evacuated after hammerhead sharks were spotted by an aerial patrol. An alarm sounded, swimmers got out and lifeguards on jet skis chased the sharks away. Then the beaches reopened, and everyone returned to the water.

Paris who?

Paris Hilton pays regular visits to Sydney, where she shops, parties and does whatever Paris does. But if she expected to turn heads at Bondi Beach last week, the heiress would have been disappointed. Most sun-worshippers flatly ignored her, and one irreverent soul threw sand in her face.