{"id":204,"date":"2018-04-18T12:06:05","date_gmt":"2018-04-18T12:06:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/clements\/?p=204"},"modified":"2018-04-18T12:06:05","modified_gmt":"2018-04-18T12:06:05","slug":"bird-of-the-week-the-kookaburra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/clements\/2018\/04\/18\/bird-of-the-week-the-kookaburra\/","title":{"rendered":"Bird of the week &#8211; the kookaburra"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was less than a week on Australian soil, when I found myself staring up at a\u2026kookaburra. A quintessential Australian bird, if there ever was one! I could hardly believe my eyes, there\u00a0it was just sitting there looking at me at the same forest near Coolamon where I first saw the willie wagtail, and had a mythical encounter with a swamp wallaby \u2013 the Kindra State Forest. Here is the picture I got of that\u00a0bird:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-205 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/create.twu.ca\/clements\/files\/2018\/04\/Kookaburra_1-1024x713.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"525\" height=\"366\" srcset=\"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/clements\/files\/2018\/04\/Kookaburra_1-1024x713.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/clements\/files\/2018\/04\/Kookaburra_1-300x209.jpg 300w, https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/clements\/files\/2018\/04\/Kookaburra_1-768x535.jpg 768w, https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/clements\/files\/2018\/04\/Kookaburra_1.jpg 1145w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 525px) 100vw, 525px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Since then kookaburras have been everywhere, but I never seem to know where to look for them. They just show up. This one (below) we saw near the koala preserve at Narrandera \u2013 where we saw koalas too.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-206 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/create.twu.ca\/clements\/files\/2018\/04\/Kookaburra_4-1024x806.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"525\" height=\"413\" srcset=\"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/clements\/files\/2018\/04\/Kookaburra_4-1024x806.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/clements\/files\/2018\/04\/Kookaburra_4-300x236.jpg 300w, https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/clements\/files\/2018\/04\/Kookaburra_4-768x605.jpg 768w, https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/clements\/files\/2018\/04\/Kookaburra_4.jpg 1025w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 525px) 100vw, 525px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The laughing bit seems to happen mostly in the evening. One warm summer night as we drove to the end of a road somewhere in the middle of nowhere, we heard a small chorus of laughing kookaburras, as recorded in the video below. Note the video is for sound only \u2013 no kookaburras appear \u2013 but you can sure hear them!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Kookaburra laugh song\" width=\"525\" height=\"295\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rz1fVnhadWI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The kookaburra was made famous by this laughing, as immortalized in a children\u2019s poem written by Marion Sinclair in 1932 for a contest being put on by the Victorian Girl Guides. The poem won the contest and was sung at the World Jamboree in Frankston, Victoria in 1934. Now it is well known around the world. In case you don\u2019t know the lyrics, I\u2019ve put them down for ya!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">******<\/p>\n<p>Kookaburra sits on the old gum tree,<br \/>\nMerry merry king of the bush is he.<br \/>\nLaugh, Kookaburra, laugh, Kookaburra,<br \/>\nGay your life must be!<\/p>\n<p>Kookaburra sits on the old gum tree,<br \/>\nEating all the gum drops he can see.<br \/>\nStop Kookaburra, stop Kookaburra<br \/>\nSave some there for me!<\/p>\n<p>Kookaburra sits on the old gum tree,<br \/>\nCounting all the monkeys he can see.<br \/>\nLaugh Kookaburra, laugh Kookaburra<br \/>\nThat&#8217;s not a monkey, that&#8217;s me!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">******<\/p>\n<p>Of course, there are no monkeys in Australia. However, the gum tree (= eucalyptus) is the most common tree around, and there are many different types of gum trees and I suppose kookaburras sit in all of them at one time or another. However, the one I see nearly every day driving to Charles Sturt University is\u00a0usually on a wire when I spot him.<\/p>\n<p>And check out the perch this kookaburra has chosen&#8230;trying to balance out the universe, perhaps?<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-207 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/create.twu.ca\/clements\/files\/2018\/04\/Kookaburra_5.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"999\" height=\"641\" srcset=\"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/clements\/files\/2018\/04\/Kookaburra_5.jpg 999w, https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/clements\/files\/2018\/04\/Kookaburra_5-300x192.jpg 300w, https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/clements\/files\/2018\/04\/Kookaburra_5-768x493.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 767px) 89vw, (max-width: 1000px) 54vw, (max-width: 1071px) 543px, 580px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was less than a week on Australian soil, when I found myself staring up at a\u2026kookaburra. A quintessential Australian bird, if there ever was one! I could hardly believe my eyes, there\u00a0it was just sitting there looking at me at the same forest near Coolamon where I first saw the willie wagtail, and had &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/clements\/2018\/04\/18\/bird-of-the-week-the-kookaburra\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Bird of the week &#8211; the kookaburra&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":212,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/clements\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/clements\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/clements\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/clements\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/212"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/clements\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/clements\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":209,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/clements\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions\/209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/clements\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/clements\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/clements\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}