May 20 - Chirps and Tweets

I like listening to the sound of bird calls. Birds, especially the small ones, are usually too fast or too far away for me to see, so the sound of their chirping and chattering helps me to locate and identify them. I’m not especially good at the identifying part, but I love it when one of these feathered creatures has an especially distinctive sound.  I remember the first time I heard a woodpecker drilling its tattoo.   Although I can’t see the tiny chickadee, I can pick out its call in the spring, and in the fall, the honk of the migrating Canada goose is clear.

On the other side of the Pacific, the Australian bush is alive with the squawks, chatter and cheeps of many different birds.  Sometimes their chatter is so loud and incessant it is nearly impossible to tell one sound from another.  However, there is one bird call that stands out for me – the laugh of the kookaburra.

The kookaburra has a particularly distinctive call – much like a slightly hysterical but very contagious female laugh.  Kookaburras can be heard in all parts of Australia.  They often perch at the top of tall gum trees.  Like seagulls, they will often gather where there is the possibility of picking up leftover food scraps.  Some years ago on a family picnic, a kookaburra swooped down from the bush to neatly pick up a strand of sausages my mother had set out on the table waiting for the barbeque.  The kookaburra has a very strong beak.  In fact, the kookaburra is related to the kingfisher.

I have posted two pictures here.  The first is a side view of a kookaburra sitting on a fence.  He sat quite still for this picture.  I think that he had his eyes on the family picnic taking place on the grass right behind us.  The second picture shows the same bird with the background of the beach and rock pool area where Lyle and I like to swim.

BTW – although the kookaburra is an iconic symbol of Australia, it is the emu that is pictured on the official Australian emblem.

Kookaburra

Kookaburra