kookaburra

(also with the spelling ‘cookaburra’ — for the right pronunciation, please click here)

a kind of bird – related to kingfisher family – medium-sized bird with short thick body with brown, black or white and some times a little blue feathers; large head with about 4 inch long sharp beak (bill) – black on top and pale whitish brown underside; relatively long tail; size: 15-18 inches long, and weighs 350-450 grams; feeds on (eats) insects, mice, small snakes, frogs and lizards, and the chicks of other birds; lives for about 20 years; 4 sub-species: rufous-bellied kookaburra, spangled kookaburra, blue-winged kookaburra and laughing kookaburra, native to Australia, New Zealand, and in some parts of Aru Islands in eastern Indonesia,

Special Features:
The ‘laughing kookaburra’ is the state bird of New South Wales, Australia.

The kookaburra was one of the three mascots for 2000 Summer Olympics in Sidney.

a koookaburra on a coin

Kookaburras have been featured on the postal stamps and coins of Australia.

The kingfishers (birds) normally feed on fish taking them directly from the water.

The kookaburras are an exception as they feed on insects and other small land animals.

The ‘laughing kookaburra’, also called the ‘laughing jackass’, is the largest of all the kingfishers in the world, and, along with some other species, it is known to make sounds (calls) that sound just like a person laughing loudly – roughly like ‘kook-kook-kook’ and at the end ‘ha…ha…ha’.

The morning and evening cackling “laughs” of the kookaburras have made so much impression on the local people that they named these birds the ‘bushmen’s clock’!

The most interesting feature of these birds is that the young kookaburras do not leave their parents’ nest even when they are ready to go, but stay close to the nest and help their parents in raising the next brood!!

Figures of Speech:
look like a kookaburra that has swallowed a kangaroo = very, very happy