Animal of the week #3: Cockatoos

There are lots of kinds of cockatoos. I've seen 2 kinds: the Little Corella and the Galah .  I saw the Little Corella at the lake in the University of Queensland campus.  The Little Corellas are all white and their eyes look weird.  There are hundreds of Little Corellas and they make a lot of noise.  The Galahs (pronounced ga-LAR) are pink and grey, and a little white on its head and beak. If you call someone a "galah", then they're an idiot.  My brother is a bit of a galah.

Mud flats

Hi! We and the students are staying at Moreton Bay Research Station on Stradbroke Island. Today we went to the mud flats during low tide. We found lots of cool fish,sea slugs and crabs. I found a star fish! When we were wading back to shore, I had to swim it was so deep. 

If you have any places or animals in Brisbane you'd like to see, let me know and I will try to find them and post on them.

Animal of the week #2: Koalas

Koalas are soft and cuddly. I know because I held a koala yesterday.

Koalas are not bears, they are marsupials. Their babies develop in a pouch. The koala babies go in from the bottom of the pouch. Koalas have two thumbs on their hands so they can clamp onto me, and they eat eucalyptus leaves. Koalas sleep 18 hours a day because the leave only have 5% sugar. There are 125 koalas in the Lone Pine Sanctuary. When I was holding the koala, the koala made a mark on my t-shirt from his scent gland. I smelled like eucalyptus all day! Emil did too.

Lone Pine

Today we visited Lone Pine, the largest  koala sanctuary in the world. The sanctuary also has kangaroos, parrots, Tasmanian devil, dingos, and snakes. Lone Pine has 125 koalas, one of them was Sarah, she  died in 2001. She was 23 years old, the oldest koala in captivity. Koalas eat so much Lone Pine has to have a eucalyptus tree farm to feed them. Here are some pictures.

Animal of the week #1, George

George is a St Bernard and lives with our friends Zane, Jude and Adam in L.A. The St Bernard is a giant dog than can weigh 140 - 264 pounds! They are strong and lazy and kid friendly. George likes to play and slobber on you. But watch out: when he drools on you it dries up and you have to wash it off. So, be careful!  Clio's animal of the week. Awesome!

Packing

All packed and ready to go. Australia here we come! We leave on Saturday, August17 for Los Angeles.                 In Los Angeles, we will visit with family friends. I haven't seen them since April when we went to Florida. One of their 3 kids is my age. We will also see our cousin from Greece who just moved to  L. A. We will stay a few days before we go to Australia. 

Animal of the week

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My sister Clio will post once a week the animal of the week every Friday.