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Lake Daylesford in Daylesford, Victoria, Australia |
The Passengers went to Australia last week – our very first trip Down Under. We had a fabulous time in and around Melbourne, about a seven hour flight from Singapore (Sydney is further. Perth is closer.).
Among the highlights of our trip was staying at a
bed and breakfast in the spa town of Daylesford. Every morning, and on some evenings, we walked around the very scenic lake, seen above. At the beginning of one stroll we heard the cackling of kookaburras in the bush, and we were delighted when a pair of them alighted on a low branch just beside our path. Click on the pictures for larger images.
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Kookaburras are carnivorous. They even eat poisonous snakes. |
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On our first morning in Daylesford we definitely heard kookaburras in the bush. This was the second pair we sighted on our trip. |
UPDATE (19 December 2011): I found the
essay David Sedaris wrote about feeding a kookaburra in Daylesford for the
New Yorker in 2009.
... I was already overstimulated, but how often in life do you
get such an offer [to feed a kookaburra]? That’s how I found myself on the deck, holding a bowl of raw
duck meat cut into slender strips. At the sight of it, the bird stood up and
flew onto my arm, which buckled slightly beneath the weight.
“Don’t be afraid,” the waiter said, and he talked to the
kookaburra in a soothing, respectful voice, the way you might to a child with a
switchblade in his hand. For that’s what this thing’s beak was—a serious
weapon. I held a strip of raw duck, and after yanking it from my fingers the
bird flew back to the railing. Then he took the meat and began slamming it
against his wooden platform. Whap, whap, whap. Over and over, as if he were
tenderizing it.
“This is what he’d do in the wild with snakes and lizards
and such,” the waiter said. “He thinks it’s still alive, see. He thinks he’s
killing it.”
The kookaburra must have slammed the meat against the wooden
platform a good ten times. Only then did he swallow it, and look up,
expectantly, for more.
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