Lessons from a Kookaburra

Half way down the drive a kookaburra was perched on a fence post. He completely ignored me, although the crunch, crunch of every step I took echoed through the still morning air. He was focused.

‘Is it a big, fat worm you have your eye on?’

He didn’t flinch. Then, as I drew nearer, he swooped, a lightning quick dive, beak to ground, a movement like a swimmer pushing off the pool wall, and he was gone, soaring upwards to land on the welcoming arm of a towering gum. Seconds later the cackle started. By the time I reached the gate it was one of those full throated maniacal laughs. The rest of the family joined in, two younger birds making their way across from the neighbour’s place to join the post prandial conversation.

One evening we were sitting around the fire pit when Ross nudged me to look up from what I was doing. A very focused kookaburra was perched on one of the rocks surrounding the garden bed. Above him, wispy branches of a silver birch rustled a little in the evening breeze, just behind the rock, a couple of our Isa Browns flicked mulch everywhere in their search for grubs, a couple of metres from him our fire crackled and leapt in the fire pit, yet the kookaburra did not take his eyes off whatever he was watching. Then, there was a flash of movement as his sharp beak grabbed whatever he had been waiting for, followed by a soaring flight over the back fence to a nearby gum tree. The laughter that followed might have been a happy ‘glad we’ve got some supper’ laugh!

We have a lot of kookaburras around here, so I often get to see them doing their thing. I love them - for a couple of reasons. Their focus is amazing and I could probably learn something from them in that! But they also keep the snake population down - for which I am very grateful :).