. . . and interestingly, their famous laugh is an angry warning to other Kookaburras to "go away, this is my tree" 😂 They used to be nicknamed the "Laughing Jackass" but you don't hear anyone use it any more. But the most bizarre thing I have ever noticed about Kookaburras is how their laugh can be heard in old black & white Tarzan movies LOL!!!!!
@@Ken_James_SV I reckon when they're it sounds as mumbling to each other not the cry but the soft gurgling sound I reckon they've got one of deepest sounds of birds over here
That they do lol I was watching my kids playing one day and my daughter tripped over and fell in a massive puddle next thing a couple of kookaburras sitting on the roof started laughing I swear they where laughing at her because the timing was perfect
I had some laughing at me getting swooped by a magpie while I tried to do my best to run like a duck through the bush with my hiking bag on my head. They are like wanker mates... But you gotta love them 😀
I was walking through a park one day and I saw these tourists having a bbq. Little did they know there were 3 kookaburras in a tree staring at them. Suddenly, two of them swopped down on the people and the third one flew in to grab the bbq meat. The birds then retreated to share their hard earned meal ahahaha. The birds are smart. They had the whole play set up.
I can vouch for this sort of behaviour. I once was eating sausage and a piece was stolen from my fork between the plate and my mouth by a kookaburra that swooped with perfect timing. :)
Spent a weekend camping at Blackdowns Tableland long time ago. The kookaburras there were the worst thieves I have come across, as soon as they smelt the BBQ dozens showed up and we were under attack! The only way to keep our lunch was to have one of the kids standing by the hot plate wildly swinging a rake around! Not even going to mention the break and enter goannas!!!
@@mikeyhau Same, my sister went on a school trip, and they were having a bbq, a kookaburra stole a sausage from one of the kids then bashed it against the branch it was sitting on to 'kill it', must have thought it was a snake
When I did volunteer work with wildlife 40 years ago, I got an injured kookaburra. We had a large parrot cage and covered it with leaves (for shade) and put it out on the clothes line so it could spin around and enjoy the outdoors. Within 24 hours we had several other kookies visiting our guest and some started to drop it food, as they thought it was trapped. As I'm a qualified vet nurse, I had never read or knew this. I found out from a guy from CSIRO that it indicated they were instinct specific. Kooks eat snakes and yonks ago people were putting out plastic snakes to keep out unwanted visitors, but unfortunately, the kooks were thinking they were the real thing and were dying. So the population got educated to forgo the plastic snake. My juvenile kook needed just a couple of weeks cage rest as it had a injured wing due to being blown from its nest in a severe storm and after a couple of weeks we were happy to let it go. Ian, I hope you get to hear a kook laugh - it is a lovely bush sound. I live about one km from a waterhole so we see of look of birds and get to hear the kookies often.
I have looked after kookaburras as well and found that the local ones used to feed the young ones and it was the best way to get the young ones returned to the wild. They didn't tend to like the adults though.
Kookaburras are famous for making laughing sounds, whenever I make a mistake a kookaburra always laughs. Even though they don’t know lol, it’s just perfect timing
Kookaburra sittin on the electric wire, Jumpin up and down with his pants on fire, Laugh Kookaburra, laugh Kookaburra, Gay your life must be. (Gay in the old meaning of happy.) It's a song we grew up with as kids.
The original version of this was: Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree Merry, merry king of the bush is he Laugh, Kookaburra! Laugh, Kookaburra! Kookaburra, Gay your life must be Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree Eating all the gum drops he can see Stop, Kookaburra! Stop, Kookaburra! Kookaburra, Leave some there for me
the version I grew up with was, Kookaburra sitting on an old rubber tyre, scratching his arse with a piece of barbed wire, laugh, Kookaburra laugh, Kookaburra, how red your arse must be. There is another one but it's a tad more rude, so I'll leave that for now lol.
the kookaburra laugh is used as sound effect in a lot of movies especially for jungle/forest scenes. for us it's weird hearing a kookaburra and then a monkey noise or some animal we don't have in aus. but for non australians it's there to add suspense.
My grandmother used to have about half a dozen of them lob every morning, she would feed them a little bit of mince each and they would sit there on the verandah railing and sing for her, then they'd go forage in Pop's vege patch for grubs and other pests. Nan and Pop lived in that place for about 20 years, and after about 2 or 3 years, the Kookas started to bring their babies to breaky at Nan's...it was great to see my little old Nan talking to and feeding these beautiful creatures, she also had some maggies come down too, so it was like a magical chorus when they all started to sing at once... My dad always called them "Haha pigeons" not exactly sure why or how, but it might have had something to do with him being a bushie, he was born and bred in a little town about 500ks west of Sydney, it's not so little now but it was when he was born... ;)
Thanks for sharing your story. I have a GM that also feeds the wildlife, has been there for 40 odd years. She doesn’t get kookaburras, but an array of birds in groups at all hours and has kangaroos in the early evening. We grew up with one Roo that was very tame called Jojo and used to hand feed her. She 96 now and still dragging food out for them 😀 Our GMA’s sound so alike 👍
@@neenekinskins6241 I'm on the NSW Central Coast, about 5 minutes out of Gosford...we don't seem to get as many birds these days, but when we do, it's usually a huge flock of rosellas that get into the bottlebrush tree next to my driveway... they may be noisy buggers but they sure are pretty to look at... ;)
largest of the Kingfisher family of brids. They are predatory and eat small fish along with snakes lizards and other small animals. Probably my fav Australian bird.
If you give them a little treat (just a small piece of meat. Maggie's are the same) they will hang around your house and yard. You really should hear them when they laugh !! All the best. Bluey.
Fun fact - The 60's TV show "Flipper" used a sped-up recording of a Kookaburra to create the voice of Flipper. Kookaburras are normally shy but feed them and you have a mate for life or until the food runs out. In the wild, they eat snakes and anything else.
Kookaburra are wonderful bird... our two come and tap on the glass door at the kitchen for their little bit of breakfast mince most mornings and then show their appreciation with a laugh duet. Fabulous!.
My Dad was known to talk with his hands. We were having a picnic when I was a kid, Dad talking, waving his hands, a cold lamb chop in one hand and suddenly 'whoosh' a Kookaburra swooped in and flogged his chop. His face was priceless! You need to hear a Kooka actually laugh. They are so gorgeous. I love them.
I can guarantee you've heard a kookaburra call - every American movie that has a jungle scene in it since the beginning of time has had a kookaburra laughing in the soundtrack. As an Australian, I always found it weird.
We've got heaps here on the farm, they love grabbing the mice from the hey bails when i feed the cows. Most of those birds would be ones from camping grounds and backyards of people who've been feeding them regularly.
We had 4 Kookaburras that would eat from our hand growing up. They would fly down out of the bush and sit on the rear balustrade waiting to be fed every afternoon. As a general rule, they live of snakes, lizards and vermin. They are members of the Kingfisher family.
I was walking up to the house from down the back yard with my cat who would follow me around like a dog and she was trotting ahead of me when a kookaburra silently swept right past me and smacked my cat on the head with it's beak making a loud crack which nearly knocked her out and the cat took off for cover and was pretty startled by it. It was a pretty awesome thing to see but not so much for the cat.
You must listen to the kookaburra laugh, we hear them in the morning, it never gets old :-) A song we leant as kids at school was.... Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree, merry merry King of the bush is he , laugh kookaburra laugh kookaburra
I love Kookaburras, I have several birds visit me including brush turkeys! Kookaburras are always welcome, except the one who brought me a mouse for lunch, but my fav is the baby one who cleans the bugs out of my potplants! 🤗👍
We keep a large ceramic baking dish full of water on our balcony . Daily we have a few kookaburras, as well as so many other birds come for a splash, drink and hang out. Australian birds are amazing
Many, many years ago we used to camp near a huge waterfall in the forest in outback Queensland. I remember one morning sitting down for sausages and bacon for brekky and a Kookaburra flew down, grabbed the sausage and took off with it in almost the wink of an eye. Cheeky buggers.
They are cheeky buggers. Once when we were camping, they stole food off our table, and even swooped down and stole snags (sausages) off our hot BBQ while we were still cooking them.😁
A kookaburra is a kingfisher and when they make that laughing noise it is typically more than one which what makes the iconic noise The Laughing Kookaburra
Pity it didn't ago the most important thing...their laugh at normal speed. These birds typically sit on power lines or perched in a tree starring at the group looking for prey
Kookaburras always sit on the tree next to my house at around 4pm everyday for a laugh ♡ i love hearing them, such a unique sound.... plus theyre so cute and fat and fluffy 😍
Most of these birds have been fed regularly by these people or someone hence they don’t see humans as a threats but most will mind there own business, iconic bird call that can instantly send you down memory lane of all your Bush camping etc, moments 🥰
I live in Canberra and they are everywhere in my suburb. I wake up to their laughter most mornings. I remember a cute song we used to sing at primary school about them. Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree, Merry merry king of the bush is he, Laugh Kookaburra, Laugh Kookaburra Gay your life must be. Even the songs hilarious! 😂
You should check out the Laughing Kookaburra's cousin, the Blue-winged Kookaburra, the second largest Kingfisher. Stunning looking bird with amazing blue wings and piercing eyes. Fails in the "laugh" department though. Sounds more like it is choking when it "laughs" 😊
We have kookaburras living around our area. You can often hear them when the windows are open. And even though I live in the suburbs we see a lot of roos, a few koalas and loads of Aussie birds which always makes waiting at the bus stop more enjoyable.
Awesome bird, but can be a real pain in the arse if you're out having a bbq or picnic. They are relentless, will literally fly down and take food off your table, or out of your hand if you're not paying attention. But geez, that video was hilarious
My father kept a couple in an aviary as pets when I was younger. Really interesting birds with a reserved but intelligent personality. He would feed them culled chickens he bought in bulk from a layer hatchery as well as any mice caught by the mousetraps around the shed, aviaries and house.
When I get up in the morning around 7am and make my way to the kitchen, almost every day I see a Kookaburra occupying a particular branch of a gum tree in my backyard. Coincidentally, there is a fish pond below the tree that usually has frogs. I've also noticed King Parrots visiting a Camellia in the backyard around the same time. Kookaburras are so good at focusing on food. A couple of times down at Royal National Park the resident Kookaburras have snatched food right out of out hands without any warning...they basically swoop and grab the food out of your hands as they fly past.
I live about 30-40 minutes the the Brisbane CBD and on about an acre of land so we have lots of trees. We see lots of native wildlife like wallabies, brushtail possums, many native birds and have a few Kookaburras that visit everyday and I get to wake up to their laughter, it’s very cool.
Fun fact about kookabarras is that the east coast birds laugh while the west coast birds don't. The first time I went to WA surprised me when I first heard a kookabarra because they don't sound anything like the ones in QLD I've heard my whole life.
Magpies and kookaburras are my favourite birds and I am blessed to have both in my yard! I remember there were a family of kookas sounding off in the jaccaranda and when I looked out 2 of them were fighting over a mouse when 1 was knocked off the branch but wasn't letting go of that prize! It hung on for what seemed a long time!
Kookas or Burras are our iconic bird. They have a very unique call or as a lot of people call it laughing, because it sounds like a hearty laugh. They are pretty much everywhere and in suburbs also. I grew up mimicking them as they lined up on our back fence every day and watched us playing. Love them, they are certainly fantastic characters and emulate our Aussie persona.
There are heaps of kookaburras where I live because I live near a creek and they catch fish. The other parakeet dancing next to the kookaburra is a Rainbow Lorikeet. I have a pair nesting with two babies in my gum tree at the moment. They have three or four babies every year. I love them. It’s so nice to hear the kookaburras laughing at 5:30 am. They do that all summer.
We have a holiday house up in the bush (Mansfield, Vic) and mum was sitting out on a plastic chair near one of our wood fires. A little bird come down to the ground near mum and squawked up a storm, and it wasn't until it flew away only to come back with a kookaburra did we realise what it was freaking out about. The little bird come back down to land near mum again and the kookaburra swooped under mum chair to fly away with a snake. We hadn't realised a live snake was under mums chair until it got snatched up and eaten by a kookaburra. They are very good at their jobs cleaning up snakes as carnivores. Always out for a good snag and some bacon too.
@@jazzycat8917 Yeah all good, shook real bad and caused some unusual waves to the lake but otherwise our house is still standing (I haven't heard of any other damage other then the old building in melb.) and our miners miraculously got away unscathed too luckily. Thanks for checking in, hope you didn't have any trouble either? (assuming you in the tremors reaches.)
Ian, watch a video on the kookaburra's laugh - the sound/call they make to communicate. In this video you only got a tiny taste of it - you need to hear their full laugh. :)
My father is always tinkering away with motorbike parts on his verandah & while he's working away there's 1 that brings him worms & drops em @ his feet. When he tries to give em back it will just hold it then drop it closer if it can. I don't know what that's about. He's never fed them but doesn't shoo em away when they scavenge among his garden nxt to him either.
Something cool about kookaburras is that despite being kingfishers, their primary diet includes snakes. And sometimes their mouths are are bigger than their stomachs, so they have to sit in the sun waiting to digest their food while half a snake hangs out of their beak.
Kookaburras are one of the few species of Australian wildlife that won't actually try to kill you on sight. They are the biggest species of kingfisher in the world. They will sometimes nest on the fringes of towns, and if you work at it, they can become tame enough to take food from your hand. There are some videos of them coming inside houses and eating from tables.
Growing up, Kookaburras use to be in my backyard a lot of the time. Once, I was sitting on the back verandah and watched as a Kookaburra swooped down to the grass a couple times, then flew off with a baby brown snake in its mouth.
The Green one with orange on the front with blue head at 4:45 is a Rainbow Lorikeet, I have two that i have raised since weeks old and are now 12 and half years old, they are known as "Clowns of the bird world".
I consider kookaburras as my spirit bird. When ever I have troubles in life and need encouragement, suddenly they are there- sometimes even in groups- outside my house. One time I even had a Kingfisher in my back yard. Vibrant blue. I had never seen one in real life before. I think I must have gotten lost during a migration or something.
As a kid one of the things I enjoyed about visiting Grandma was laying in bed, early in the morning, listening to the kookaburras in the tree outside my window.
You can definitely see where the idea of bunyips and other strange things living out in the Bush come from with some of the noises our animals make. While people usually think of the laughing kookaburra when they hear the term, there is also the blue-winged winged kookaburra Which is found in northern Australia and makes a very different sound to the iconic call of the average laughing kookaburra.
Mates Dad lives in the bush. He has wild Kookas daily coming for a feed. Same family for years. The parents introduce their young too. Must feed raw steak. And some will still try and bash the steak against a hard surface to kill it.
Their natural food is lizards and snakes - and baby birds from other bird's nests, particularly about the willy wagtail. size. I've seen them take a sausage from the mouth of someone at barbyQ, they are really game birds. Their slang name is a laughing jackass. Awesome sound first thing in the morning or last thing at sundown.
The amount of times I've been walking to work at the butt crack of dawn and kookaburras are laughing away; feels very fitting. At my old house we had one that would sit on our back fence and just chill for an hour. My mum would have about 5 of them perched on the balcony at her apartment and she'd hand feed them bits of mince.
If you feed them, the Cockatoos and the Magpies at the same time everyday they will come to your house at the same time every day for their food. You can hand feed them pretty fast, once they get used to you. They are pretty cool birds.
My Father in law used to live in the Adelaide hills, and had kookaburras, magpies and possums turn up for a regular feed. There was a story about a kookaburra who gained so much weight from being hand fed, he couldn’t fly, and had to be put on a diet!
Kookaburras are famous for their laugh. I think they are the largest of the kingfisher family, hunters and scavengers, they never seem short of a meal. My sister lives in the hills around Perth. She feeds them, started with 1 or 2 but that didn't last long. I was there a couple of weeks back and she had about 20 of them, adults and juveniles. They know when feeding time is as well, if she doesn't come outside they start singing, or should I say screaming. So she feeds them mince I think, they have no fear of people, they come right up to us. Of course the crows decide to get in on the action as well...like a little bird restaurant.
We have a lot of kookaburras where I live. They are pretty much the merry king of the bush - magpies and other butcher birds don't mess with them, and I can't remember ever seeing any hawks or eagles try to either. I think that's why they are so unflappable and confident. They are also smart, and will remember you over the space of years. The largest kingfisher also, by the way.
These birds have been "trained" to approach humans. Leaving out bits of meat for them and finally getting them to come up to you can take a while. We have there guys where I live, but we have left them wild. They are rather good at catching gold fish, mice, lizards and small snakes. They can be often seen in public barbecue areas, and have learnt to swoop down and steal sausages from the picnickers. There are other birds that have learnt the same trick, such as the currawong (a large black crow ) Anyway, waking up to their "laughter" song is great.
We rescued a young kookaburra and looked after it over the weekend while we waited until we could drop it off at the wildlife rescue centre on Monday. MY GOD CAN THEY EAT. Kookaburras basically work together to feed the babies because a single mother couldn't possibly get it all the food it needs. It went through a kilo of mince, EASY.
I like them. A mate had a holiday home near a nice beach in SW Western Australia, Every morning the birds would come and sit on the veranda railing, We have had Kooka's, magpies, rainbow lorikeets, and port lincoln parrots all at the same time. All will take bread except the kookas, they only want meat. When you give them a piece of meat or sausage, they will fly off to a nearby branch and beat it up like a snake or lizard that needs to be killed. Kookas are actually a large kingfisher, but instead of fishing in ponds for fish, they prey on land animals like snakes, lizards, and the sausage off your BBQ or right before you are about to take a bite out of it at some picnic areas, LOL. This is true, I have seen both happen. There are two types by the way, they look similar but one type has blue patches on the wings and the other does not. Oh, and that mysterious koo koo koo kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw sound you used to hear in jungle movies as a kid was actually an aussie kooka.
Hi Ian. The more that these Kookaburras are fed by humans, the bolder they get. Most live in the bush and are wary like any other bird. Their laughing (sounds like) call is instantly recognisable though, usually perched high up in a gum tree. Cheers. :)
Kookaburra is the Aussie Rooster. Usually the first one to wake you. A relative from South America visiting was surprised by them, asking if we had monkeys in Australia ! LoL Never thought about but yeh they can sound like a howling monkey. They are pretty tame. Even the wild ones will just chill if you walk towards them. They are pretty curious and self confident. I live in Sydney near the Botanic Gardens (Do a Google search as it is a super beautiful park right next to the city/ Opera House and Harbour Bridge). Theres a Gang (collective noun expresses how they really can be rat bags) of Cockatoos living there as well. In a gang of 50-100 they tear through the local suburbs (my suburb of Potts Point) in the morning screaming their heads off like crazed banshees. Not much fun at 6:30 with a hangover ! LOL Have a look on RU-vid for them as they are notorious for destroying buildings ripping in to the form work. They will literally walk up to you and start biting your shoe when you walk through the Botanic Gardens. They don’t mean harm, they’re just taking the piss and looking for a feed.
They are awesome birds. I used to come home from work to 9 Kooka's and they were so pleased to see me. Only because I gave them fresh pet mince every night. They hated Magpies who tried to nick their tucker and they would go them and then laugh. I loved them.
When i was at uni the uni bar had an eating area outside and there was kookaburras that would be known to swoop in and steal our food. Had some of my chips stolen straight from the bowl, then it would mock us by laughing afterwards 🥲🤣
Seeing them swoop on a scurry of mice is amazing. A kookaburra will swoop and get one or two in his beak, fly into tree and smash them and poke them into a hole in the tree and continue on. I saw two kookas do this years ago after I moved a sheet of corrugated iron in my garden. Dozens of mice scurried in very direction. Those kookas were ready and waiting in the trees. They are very friendly and easy to semi tame. They love minced meat... I had a family of 7 of them in my yard. We lived next to sugar cane fields, so plenty of mice.....
Lol Kookaburras are awesome birds.. i wake most mornings to a chorus of kookas in the tree just outside my bedroom .. when I am out brush cutting the paddocks I will usually have four or five kookaburras following me getting all the spiders and insects I disable with the brushcutter lol
They have adapted really well to urban environments. Plenty in Sydney suburbs & even in the CBD.They are a tough bird that live in family groups. Yes it’s annoying at dawn when they sound off but it’s a sound that is so essentially Australian. They perch & hunt from about 20 to 30 foot ,so telephone lines a good start. They eat snakes,lizards, frogs,mice,rats & big insects. They perch & call from the highest point in their territory,might be a tree or could be a set of stadium lights or a communications tower. Between 4 houses we have 4 next boxes on poles to replace the big nesting tree that came down in a storm. Bloody noisy when the full clan sound off,4 pairs + last years chicks now teenagers ,helping raise this years chicks.
Fun fact; kookaburras are so unafraid of humans that they will snatch food from tables in parks and picnic areas. They will even scald their feet on hot barbies to snatch the food if they feel like it. They're actually a member of the kingfisher family, so if memory serves, you've got relatives to the kookaburra living in your neck of the woods. They're much beloved by Aussies for their personality, and also because a major part of their diet is snakes.
Had them drop live snakes onto a BBQ in a national park while we were cooking (I think they wanted it cooked) Had them grab sausages off the grill while standing there turning them unless you chase them off. You quickly learn to not look away if they are around else you end up with nothing. Also had them fly past and grab a patty out of my bun just as I was about to take a bite so all I ended up with was the bread, still actually both impressed and bitter about that one.
