We have had a family of kookaburras in our area these past few weeks.
I love hearing the Laughing Kookaburras – Dacelo novaeguineae – with their early morning and late afternoon calls -and often daytime as well! They do literally sound like they are laughing at life.
The young kookburras are quite funny as they learn to ‘kooka’ as it starts as a kind of scratchy gutteral chuckle that overtime becomes a the koo kaa kaa kaa of the adults.
This pair of Kookaburras below were an adult and one of its young – the young one is on the left and is behind the adult in the photo on the right.
There was quite a ‘kuffle’ the other morning when a local magpie family crossed beaks with this local kookaburra family over territory and food.The adult magpie was stalking the young kookaburra trying to run it off this clothes line but the kookaburra quite sure of itself was having nothing of that and remained on the clothes line.
Maybe it was the lure of that lovely red object it had been playing with on that line but there was no way this baby kookaburra was moving.
Wildflowerings - Art Studio Diary 
How lucky you are to live with such a variety of birdlife surrounding you!
Those kookaburras are very top-heavy with that large head and beak. Are they related to the kingfishers?
Hi Wren yes we are lucky, Australia is full of interesting wildlife and wildflowers – some are very odd indeed – and I am fortunate where I live. Growing up I lived on the outer area of Sydney near the bushland so had lots of opportunities there to see plenty of flora and fauna as well. This kookaburra is in the kingfisher family and that beak can be quite vicious.
Lyn
You are lucky, I agree, I’ve never seen kookaburras before, they do look like a large version of a kingfisher except the colouring is different.
I love hearing our kookaburras every morning and evening – greeting the day and saying goodnight.