no laughing
kookaburra sits
just watching
The Laughing Kookaburra is a large kingfisher. They are renowned for catching and eating snakes and other reptiles as well as other bird fledglings. They have a loud and slightly chilling call that sounds like a mad person cackling, hence the name. They are quite fearless of people , security coming from being near the top of the food chain. This bird was sitting beside a walking track in the national park I took early one morning. I suspect it was watching for breakfast.
Haiku hound 
Love this sequence, Denis
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Thanks Al.I will add more tomorrow.
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Lovely one, and how big his beak according to his body 🙂 I loved it, Thank you dear Denis, Love, nia
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The beak is for holding and crushing the snakes and other reptiles and fish they eat.
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…. 🙂 why your beak is very big? Because I can catch you easily… and eat you…
Thank you dear Denis, have a nice day and weekend, Love, nia
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Good poetry Nia, very true also
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I loved the haiku too, I forget to add this 🙂 you always find the words for them. Thank you, Love, nia
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Thanks Nia. Sometimes the haiku comes first, sometimes the photo came first and occasionally they come together.
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Nice to actually see a kookaburra — I only know them from a song learned as a child: ‘Kookaburra sits in an old gum tree, merry merry king of the woods is he, laugh kookaburra laugh kookaburra, how gay your life must be’ (words could be a bit off but the gyst is there :))
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They are a bird with presence Janice and quickly adapt to being fed by people with homes in forest areas.. I think you got the first line right.
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Just did a check for the words of the Kookaburra song — first version that came up was pretty much the same except it said king of the bush not woods. We sang that song in rounds in grade school without ever seeing a picture of the bird. Your picture suggests the presence that you mentioned.
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Fascinating that you were singing this in Canada Janice. Have a look at this youtube https://www.google.com.au/search?q=kookaburra+sits+in+an+old+gum+tree&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=GXXuVubwNsTamgWMgaawBw
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Thanks for the cute video! They didn’t use my favourite line though: ‘Laugh kookaburra , Laugh kookaburra.’ I think grade school songbooks purposely featured an international collection of songs. I could be wrong, but I don’t think our version of the words mentioned gumdrops. Being food oriented I believe I would remember that 🙂
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Thanks for the cute video. The version is quite different from the one we learned. My favourite line was ‘laugh kookaburra laugh kookaburra’ — since we sang it as a round I believe we were given only one verse which was repeated. The tune is the same 🙂 our grade school songbooks featured songs from all over the world.
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I think the lyrics become distorted over time, a bit like political party policies.
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Great picture, Denis! This is a brave bird to eat snakes and other reptiles and not be afraid of humans. That beak looks powerful though. I’d love to hear it laugh.
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They really are fearless and strong. many years ago we were travelling at 100 KPH on a country road and one flew into our car. WE stopped and my wife went back to put the dead bird off the road. To our amazement it blinked so she put it into the back seat. We decide to look for a vet in the next town. 15 minutes later the bird was sitting between our seats looking out the window. WE left it at a vet and when we rang 2 days later they said it had been concussed and was fully recovered. They released back to the wild.
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