KOOKABURRAS

A couple of mornings ago I woke up to a sound that wasn’t a crow and wasn’t a spotted dove. It was, I thought, a kookaburra. I whipped out my Merlin bird ID app and sure enough it was. I was delighted. I love the notion of that kookaburra sitting in the old gum tree, merry merry king of the bush is he. Laugh, Kookaburra, laugh Kookaburra, gay your life must be!


Only to have all my illuisions shattered. I had no idea that kookaburras aren’t native to Western Australia. We used to hand feed them in the Porongorups when we went to stay during school holidays. A pair regularly flew in to talk to us when we stayed in the Margaret River district a couple of years ago. But they are imports. There were introduced to WA in the late 1890s to control snakes and have spread throughout the south west. I even found an ABC article from 2020 about first sightings in Esperance: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-20/kookaburra-cull-questions-after-bush-king-spotted-in-esperance/12578196

My joy in hearing one has been somewhat dampened but I have to confess I’d still prefer to wake up to their sound than the aaark of a crow.

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