Various birds, no longer unidentified.

Sunday we took a walk around the arboretum in town and spotted these two Galahs (also called Rose-breasted Cockatoos or Galah Cockatoos) in an oak tree.  For some reason the pink cockatoos in the autumn colors just seems a little bizarre.

Eolophus roseicapilla

I also picked up a field guide from the library for Eastern Australian wildlife.  Still haven't exactly figured out the white bird mystery (though I'm starting to think they're the sulphur-crested cockatoos and just don't have the big crest this time of year), but some of the other birds we've seen around are starting to get names to them.  We're familiar with the Australian magpie but now can distinguish butcherbirds and currawongs too.  There's also these little guys that hang out with the magpies sometimes.  They're a bit smaller and don't look quite the same at all, but at a glance they have similar colorings.

Magpie-lark, Grallina cyanoleuca.  Apparently they call them Peewees here in NSW.

A regular magpie.  Reid was getting nervous as they started coming closer to our table.

Angry bird (?)  More like an indifferent bird.

Close-up of a pair of Eastern Rosellas, Platycercus eximius.  We see Crimson Rosellas everywhere but still haven't gotten a picture of them.  They're very shy.

Welcome Swallows, Hirundo neoxena

I've got a couple more bird photos but they'll just have to wait for another day.  It's just as well--I need to look them up anyway.

Speaking of the field guide, we figured out what that mystery animal we saw two weekends ago on our bushwalk might be.  Maybe a brush-tailed phascogale (?? never heard of it!), also called a common wambenger (?? also never heard of it??!), also known by the native name tuan (??!?).  It's a small carnivorous marsupial.  This guy, right here.  Next time I'll take my own photo.

Phascogale tapoatafa