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Travel The last artists crafting a Thai royal treasure. They will eat lizards, snakes, insects, mice and raw meat. The more social birds will accept handouts from humans and will take raw or cooked meat even if at high temperature from on or near open-air barbecues left unattended.
It is generally not advised to feed the birds too regularly as meat alone does not include calcium and other nutrients essential to the bird. Remainders of mince on the bird's beak can fester and cause problems for the bird. Kookaburra s breed well in captivity, and when pulled from the nest and hand fed as chicks they can make quite affectionate pets.
However their captive diet of mice and beef can be difficult for some people to maintain, and their noise can irritate some, and they require spacious cages or aviaries to fly about in. Breeding behaviours Laughing Kookaburras are believed to pair for life.
Breeding Season: August to January. Economic impacts Laughing Kookaburras often become quite tame around humans and will readily accept scraps of meat. References Higgins, P. Oxford University Press, Melbourne. Strahan, R. Cuckoos, Nightbirds and Kingfishers of Australia. Back to top. Search website Submit Search. Close Modal Dialog. The laughing kookaburra Dacelo novaeguineae is a bird in the kingfisher subfamily Halcyoninae.
It is a large robust kingfisher with a whitish head and a dark eye-stripe. The upperparts are mostly dark brown but there is a mottled light-blue patch on the wing coverts. The underparts are white and the tail is barred with rufous and black.
The plumage of the male and female birds is similar. The territorial call is a distinctive laugh that is often delivered by several birds at the same time, and is widely used as a stock sound effect in situations that involve a jungle setting. The laughing kookaburra is native to eastern mainland Australia, but has also been introduced to parts of New Zealand, Tasmania, and Western Australia.
It occupies dry eucalypt forest, woodland, city parks and gardens. This species is sedentary and occupies the same territory throughout the year. It is monogamous, retaining the same partner for life.
A breeding pair can be accompanied by up to five fully grown non-breeding offspring from previous years that help the parents defend their territory and raise their young. The laughing kookaburra generally breeds in unlined tree holes or in excavated holes in arboreal termite nests. The usual clutch is three white eggs. The parents and the helpers incubate the eggs and feed the chicks. The youngest of the three nestlings or chicks is often killed by the older siblings.
When the chicks fledge they continue to be fed by the group for six to ten weeks until they are able to forage independently. A predator of a wide variety of small animals, the laughing kookaburra typically waits perched on a branch until it sees an animal on the ground and then flies down and pounces on its prey. Its diet includes lizards, insects, worms, snakes and are known to take goldfish out of garden ponds.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature IUCN has classed the laughing kookaburra as a species of least concern as it has a huge range and large population, with no widespread threats. He claimed to have seen the bird in New Guinea. In fact Sonnerat never visited New Guinea and the laughing kookaburra does not occur there.
He probably obtained a preserved specimen from one of the naturalists who accompanied Captain James Cook to the east coast of Australia. In , the French naturalist Johann Hermann provided a formal description of the species based the coloured plate by Daubenton and Martinet. The current genus Dacelo was introduced in by the English zoologist William Elford Leach, and is an anagram of Alcedo , the Latin word for a kingfisher.
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