Kookaburras

Wiki Creative Commons image

Kookaburra, Laughing Kookaburra, Dacelo novaeguineae.

Lots more kookaburras on the Peninsula lately. Maybe the La Nina was a good breeding season for them.

They are shy but live in the suburbs quite happily. The closest I've ever got to one was about 3 metres and that was prety unusual. Usually they get twitchy as soon as you look at them and then a few seconds later they're off.

They hang out in gum trees in gangs of three or four or half a dozen. As the sun gets low they give a few brief chuckles then they start up their chorus of full-on laughing. Other than the didgeridoo, you don't get a sound much more Straylyan.

MP3 of kookas laughing

(Device dear, you might consider the Blue-winged Kookaburra (D. leachii) as a replacement for Mrs Beaky as it specialises in maniacal cackling.



Kookaburra nest in a dead gum tree at Umina Beach. Can you see it?




The entrance to the nest is the small dark hole in the brown section. (Hur hur.)


Kookaburra factoids

* Breeding males have blue bums, "Breeding male: Centre of rump bright blue" says the library book

* They are silent gliders when they come in to land in a tree or on a fence

* They land with their tails up then lower them slowly

* They sit on a branch and wait for the menu to wander past

* They eat meat, rats, small lizards and birds, large insects and snakes

* They are biggish compared to something like yer crow and come in 28-42 cm (11-17 inches in the old money)

* Families groups are 4 to 8 birds

* Teenage kookas often sit alone on a fence or in a tree



Distributon map. Where kookas live in Australia. Red dot is Woy Woy.




An old photo of kookas found on the Powerhouse's Flickr.

"General information about the Powerhouse Museum Collection is available at www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database."

(The internets has made it possible for museum's to show off the shitloads of fabulous old photos they've have stashed away. I *heart* the internets.)


More kooka photos

Families that laugh together stick together

So whats for Lunch?

Head shot

Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree (pool of photos)

Wiki has heaps of good photos

Eclipsed

Beautiful innit?

Had a nasty feeling we weren't going to see it. There was some cloud covering it when it came up. But it rose above it before the eclipse started. Fucking magic sight. I stood there staring at it with my gob open and my beer getting warm. Fucking magic.

This was not taken on my pissy little camera. Mate down on the Northern Beaches took it. He's got a huge zoom. (And if you ask nice he'll let you touch it.)

Video of March 2007 Lunar eclipse & lotsa stills of others
NASA techo stuff for this year's eclipses


The kookaburras are laughing their heads off. This, I've learnt from a kind commenter to whom I cannot find a link, means it's going to rain. Yes, but they laughed yesterday and it never rained! And the sky's as blue as fuck today! Still, they can't be more inaccurate than a meteorologist.