One hot bird?

Laughing Kookaburra, Lane Cove National Park

Near the end of our recent visit to the Lane Cove National Park in Sydney I saw this Laughing Kookaburra, first on a branch of a nearby tree (see below), and then on a nearby barbecue plate.

Fortunately nobody had been to that barbecue to cook their lunch that day, otherwise we would have had one very hot bird!

On a more serious note: once several decades when cooking a barbecue lunch for my family in Western Australia a kookaburra swooped out of a nearby tree and grabbed a sausage from the hot plate. I was not happy at the time, but in recent years I delight in telling this little story.

By the way, Laughing Kookaburras are not native to WA; they were introduced in the 1890s and have spread over much of south west Western Australia. On the other hand, Blue-winged Kookaburras can be found in the northern parts of WA.

Further reading:

• Laughing Kookaburra comes to lunch – an account of another kookaburra seeking human food – also in the Lane Cove National Park a few years ago.

Laughing Kookaburra, Lane Cove National Park