kookaburra birthday present

[auld argonian]

So this past Saturday was my 56th birthday...and my daughter has an internship at a Nature Museum in Lincoln Park here in Chicago and I've been accompanying her on Saturday mornings to make sure that she gets there all right and just for the company. Adjoining the museum is the Lincoln Park Zoo so I've been dropping her off and wandering through the Zoo for a wee bit...going to the Conservatory and getting some free oxygen wandering around amongst the plants and going to the bird house to check in with the birds. Been doing this for the past five weeks...The Duke of Perth is nearby and opens for lunch at noon so it's convenient to go get a pint and a burger...nice Saturday.

In the bird house there are two kookaburra's. I've stopped by their enclosure and waited for fifteen or twenty minutes every time hoping that they'd break loose with the famous kookaburra call which I, like many of us, have heretofore only heard in Tarzan movies (wrong continent, I know, but hey...it's Hollywood...what do you expect?) and never heard live and in person. Up till yesterday my waiting was in vain...no krazy kookaburra laugh.

For some of us, a sound is sort of like a yummy fruit...you can have the flavor described to you but you have to actually taste it (hear it) first person to really enjoy and appreciate it. So I stopped by the kookaburra's again yesterday thinking that surely they couldn't disappoint me on my birthday.

I'm happy to say that they came through for me. How fantastic! I started laughing my @$$ off hearing it. Those of you down there in Oz are probably sick of the sound but hearing it live for the first time was just stellar!

Best

AA

[AL-58]

People with hangovers get sick of them.

From my experience you're unlikely to hear them much during the day, like lots of birds they are at their most noisy early in the morning and then at dusk.

They do habitate my place though.

Not kookaburras, but these things feed on my front balcony (though apparently the previous owners of my house did used to hand feed Kookaburras):

King Parrots


Crimson Rosellas


Al

[thanmuwa]

King Parrots
...
Crimson Rosellas
...
Al

What beautiful birds! You may have 999.9 of the top 1000 poisonous creatures out there in Oz, but sights like that must surely make up for it.