Welcome to Jurassic Oz!

About a week before I departed for Australia I went to the movies with my family to see the new “Jurassic World” movie.  If you haven’t seen it yet, I don’t want to ruin it for you.  But I will say that in one scene dozens of giant, flying dinosaurs escape their cage and attack visitors to the theme park.  (Side note: If you have ever worked, or even visited, a Disney park you will undoubtedly recognize that Jurassic World looks eerily similar. Throughout the entire movie I kept reminiscing about my time working at Disney and thinking, “Wow, that job was interesting, but nothing THIS dramatic ever happened.”)

As I was saying, in the movie, giant, flying dinosaurs attack the theme park guests. During this scene, the flying dinos were making a lot of noise; something between the roar of the t-rex (courtesy of Hollywood imagineers) and the squawk of an oversized bird of some sort.

At 5am every morning I wake up in Brisbane, believing I am about to be carried off by a flock of loud, airborne monsters.  Welcome to Jurassic Oz!

One of my favourite things about living in Africa was the animals.  Of course, now I’m exposed to a whole host of different animals, which is exciting.  The difference is, for the most part, the animals in Africa were pretty quiet.  Here, they never shut up.  I was actually in a meeting the other day and the Koels were so loud we could barely hear one another.  Here are the two birds which have made the most significant impression on me thus far:

Here’s the Laughing Kookaburra.  It is actually a very pretty bird, but as you hear, it laughs constantly:

And then here is the Koel.  Keep in mind, in Brisbane these are the most common bird, so you never see just one, you normally see big groups of them (50+):

That’s today’s news for you from Down Under.  I’ll write about some of our other wildlife soon, you know, the kind that can kill you- sharks, jellyfish, spiders, etc.