Thanks keberoxu,

Luckily the side of the family which seems to have been up to no good are down south and I doubt I will ever meet them again. In fact, I first met the two nieces and some of their family at the memorial service, and only met their mother once when I was a kid. So, now it is all water under the bridge.

Aussie animals are cool! Wombats, Tasmanian devils, koalas, blue-tongue lizards, kangaroos, wallabies, possums - the list goes on and on. A possum family is now living in the tree at the front of our house, and although I haven't seen one for a while I am fairly sure the blue-tongue lizard is still living in our yard. Then we have rainbow lorikeets, kookaburras, magpies with their amazing songs, bellbirds, butcherbirds etc. The rainbow lorikeets and the noisy miners have territorial arguments over the grevillea bush which has a lot of flowers with nectar.

Aussie bird song collection

There is a list below the video. There are a lot more bird songs worth listening to as well as those in the video.

Common aka Indian mynahs are an introduced pest, but the noisy miners are funny. If I hear kookaburras laughing I know it will rain in a couple of days. If I see black or gang-gang cockatoos which is rare around here, it will be a big rain event. We hear and see a LOT of white corellas - loud, huge flocks flying over or eating the fruit in our olive tree before we can get to it. Someone told me they come when the grain shipments are in the nearby harbour.

Then there is the iconic Aussie bird, the galah, i.e. one of our favourite smarty-pants names for people who are acting silly.

Native animals, birds, and plants are good for the soul.