World Bird Wednesday - Laughing kookaburra

Thought I'd go with a bit of an icon this week - so here it is, the Alarmbird, the Breakfastbird, The Bushman's, Settlers or Shepard's Clock; The Brown, Great Brown, Gait or Laughing Kingfisher; Jack, Jackass, Jacko, Jack; Kooka; Laughing Jack, John, Johnass or Jonny; or finally (and these are my favourites due to their utter craziness) the Ha Ha or Woop Woop Pigeon! More commonly know as the Laughing Kookaburra, and more specifically Dacelo novaeguinea.

I remember the first time I saw one and was shocked by how big they are - the worlds largest kingfisher. I was also shocked that my friends children would throw rocks at them so that they could go back to sleep in the mornings! The rocks always missed and the Kookaburra was always back there the next morning, laughing away. For such an icon (they even make it into the sound track of early Tarzan movies) they are only native to the east coast, have been introduced else where and are absent from most of the west. But I like them - one cannot be un-cheered by a kookaburra (or a Woop Woop Pigeon for that matter!)




























You can find many more images of birds from around the world at World Bird Wednesday.

You can see the blog post that features Kookaburras (and other things) here, and you can look at the most recent of my posts by clicking the Paying Ready Attention link on the RHS of the screen.

Enjoy the birds!