Laughing Kookaburras are quite tame and social birds who will give you a loud chorus of laughter before coming down from their perch to accept scraps of meat from their audience. Being a common sight in suburban and urban areas, laughing kookaburras will even eat out of a human hand.
Habits. Occasionally, Kookaburras have exhibited defensive or aggressive behavior towards humans, but most people find their habit of attacking windows or exterior surfaces of the home to be more annoying.
Be a Backyard Buddy
Having a large range of native shrubs and trees in your backyard gives Kookaburras plenty of sticks and leaves to build a nest with. Having local native plants in your garden will also attract lizards and insects such as native bees and stick insects, which provide a tasty treat for Kookaburras.
Under Australian environmental law, live native birds cannot be exported from Australia for primarily commercial purposes. To keep a kookaburra as a pet, the NSW Native Animal Keepers' Species List dictates a permit is required and they are not allowed to be kept as a companion pet.
Fast Facts. The Laughing Kookaburra is not really laughing when it makes its familiar call. The cackle of the Laughing Kookaburra is actually a territorial call to warn other birds to stay away.
Kookaburras are not selective feeders. They feed on a wide range of food sources depending on what is available. They eat snakes, lizards, small mammals, frogs, rodents, bugs, beetles and worms. Kookaburras are often seen waiting for prey on low tree branches or powerlines.
Their call is used to establish territory among family groups, most often at dawn and dusk. One bird starts with a low, hiccuping chuckle, then throws its head back in raucous laughter. Often several others join in.
There are no federal laws prohibiting the feeding of native birds in Australia.
Special permits are necessary to keep most Australian wildlife (e.g. kangaroos, possums, wombats, koalas, kookaburras, magpies, hawks, many reptiles, frogs and fish). Usually only zoos and fauna parks are given permits to hold these animals.
While it's common to leave mincemeat for the laughing bird, it doesn't provide the nutrients kookaburras need. In an article published on Australian Geographic, mincemeat is described as being similar to “a late-night cheeseburger.” Kookaburras are carnivores, so feed on mice, snakes and small reptiles.
Carnivorous birds, including the Kookaburras, butcherbirds and magpies tend to be bolder birds. They will not shy away from an exposed birdbath. These birds will hunt larger prey such as lizards and skinks in your garden as well as smaller insects.
Kookaburras are highly social birds and live, forage, and raise young in communal family groups. Nighttime roosting is also a communal activity, with birds gathering together as night falls to head to a roosting spot in the high branches of a tree where they spend around 12 hours huddled together to conserve body heat.
Kookaburras, Magpie-larks (Pee-Wee), and some other birds, will sometimes attack their reflection in a window. This is usually a territorial behaviour, which occurs mainly in the breeding season: the bird sees its own reflection in the glass as a rival.
"They mainly do it to establish territory," she says. "They live in small family groups. And the laugh can be heard at any time of the day, though it is most frequent at dawn and dusk.
One bird starts with a low, hiccuping chuckle, then throws its head back in raucous laughter: often several others join in. If a rival tribe is within earshot and replies, the whole family soon gathers to fill the bush with ringing laughter.
Do kookaburras eat bread? Wild kookaburras won't eat bread, and shouldn't be tempted to. In fact, bread isn't particularly suitable for any bird.
"People feed magpies and kookaburras bacon, sausages, mince, cheese. It gets stuck in the top of their beaks and rots, or they die of calcium deficiency.
Plant a variety of native vegetation.
Kookaburras are drawn to native vegetation, as it provides shelter and food. Blueberry Ash, Bottlebrush, Golden Wattle, and Paperbark are all known to attract kookaburras and other native species like wrens and magpies.
However, as time passed, people adjusted that some to say a kookaburra laughing outside a house meant someone in the house was pregnant. However, other versions of the myth say that a laughing kookaburra means someone you know is pregnant.
Steak is also very high in protein, so a little will go a long way for a Kookaburra, and malnutrition could result. Huge problems can arise if the adult birds raise their young on this diet as the juvenile birds can suffer from brittle bones.
They sit on them to protect them and keep them warm for about 24 days before the eggs hatch. The young are fully grown after about a year. They often remain with the parents and help raise the next year's brood. Kookaburras may live as long as 20 years.
If kookaburras call in the middle of the day it's a sure sign of rain. Emus lay 2-4 weeks before rain. A small clutch means a dry season is on the way. When black cockatoos fly from the hills to the coast rain is on the way.
Most people know about the Kookaburras catching snakes and keeping their numbers under control in the bush.
Kookaburras mate for life and live in close family groups, comprising two adults and the older siblings from previous breeding seasons, which remain for up to three years to help their parents incubate the eggs, and feed and protect the chicks and fledglings before moving on to nests of their own.