No Laughing Matter for Kookaburras

Kevin and I attended a "Christmas in July" event this weekend. Usually at nice country pubs/resorts, we spend most of our time noshing on hors d'oeuvres, eating heavy meals and talking. Photographically speaking, these weekends are dull and/or indictable so I didn't bring my camera. I have lived to regret this decision on many an occasion and Saturday was one.

We never race from home to destination. There are too many corners to peak around on the way. This day found us eating lunch at the sheltered gas grill at Serpentine Dam. The shelter is nice to have, as the same winter rains that promote the brief period of green across this land also make soggy lunch stops. It's a nice park area and Kev has readied a nice picnic; marinated Kakadu kangaroo and a very colorful salad that includes homegrown rocket lettuce.

We push the button to start the grill. While we are waiting for it to heat up, we notice the birds in the area; ringneck parrots (bright green with a yellow 'collar' and dark head), magpies (black and white) and two kookaburras. Isn't nature wonderful?! Oh, the grill is ready now and the the chunks of meat start to sizzle immediately.

As fast as you can burp Tupperware, we had company. The ringnecks and magpies brazenly flew and walked up as close as we would let them. The kookaburras rested on the metal guard rail. Unmoving. Except for their eyeballs. At one point Kev held up between two fingers a small piece of roo. "You want a piece of this?" In a flash, one of crafty kingfishers swooped in and, with surgical precision, snatched it from a startled chef's fingers. Which he still had.

Grill scrapings I tossed on the grass interested them not. Kev walked right up to one with a bit of rocket. The bird took it but dropped it almost immediately. blah. And finally, a last big piece fell out of Kev's sandwich, so he again fed it directly to the bird. The kookaburra, and all his new friends, went to the fence. The kookaburra kept whapping the meat against the fence--the same way they kill off snakes they catch by bashing its head against a hard surface--before deciding it was dead enough to eat.

Excellent dinner theater, I tell you, and not a single shot of it to share. (The photo here is someone else's obviously similar adventure.)