Critters

Even though we are a quick walk from the city, it sounds like a tropical rain forest in the morning. I am useless at identifying bird calls, but they are loud and they are plentiful. I am also useless at taking photos of the critters. They move quite quickly. So, I'm linking to the most common animals we see around here:
Australian white ibis - they are not shy at all and I fear for my noodles when I picnic in the park.
Australian Brush-turkey - looks like a turkey because it is a turkey.
Cormorant
There are also lots of different kinds of herons, and our favorites: the lorikeets. A couple of days ago, two of these perched on the railing of our veranda! We are trying to figure out how we can attract them without attracting any of these:
Flying foxes (aka BATS) - we have seen a few at night, but I think bats are cool, so for now it's all OK. However, they are struggling with a virus that the bats spreading to horses and so far one dog in another suburb of Brisbane. Seems smart to avoid areas with too many of them!
Geckos - we had one visit us on our verandah, and yes I do understand that they are helpful critters but I still don't want one in my house, at least not for now. Also, ours was just light brown, not colorful like this one.
Possums - these guys are cute and playful, but they're fairly noisy and I suspect they can play havoc with a bag of garbage. We spotted one walking absolutely in sync with the kids, on a tin roof covering the walkway where they were walking completely unaware of his presence.

We have only seen one proper spider, but the people here talk about spiders and snakes incessantly. Not a single one of them has been bitten by either.

The Queensland Museum has an excellent overview of all the dangerous critters in the state. I was a bit worried to see these:

 and much more disconcerted to read about a cockroach that weighs more than 2 mice!

I also took a trip to the University of Queensland, which has a beautiful campus. There were quite a few critters there as well (mostly ducks), but I also found these trees:

Just to give you a nice close-up of those trunks (any caption suggestions?):