Laughing Kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae): Facts and Call

What does a laughing kookaburra look like?

The laughing kookaburra is a heavy-set bird with a big head, a short neck and a long, strong bill. The head and underparts are off-white to cream, with a dark brown stripe running back through each eye and fainter brown streaks on the crown. The back and wings are dark brown, with a patch of pale sky-blue spots on the shoulders.

The tail is rusty orange, crossed by dark brown bars and tipped with white. The bill is black on top and bone-colored underneath, and the eyes are dark brown. Males and females look almost the same, although males usually show a little blue on the rump and females are slightly larger.

The laughing kookaburra can be confused with the blue-winged kookaburra of northern Australia. The blue-winged species has a pale eye, lacks the strong dark eye-stripe and shows much more blue on the wings; males also have a blue tail. The two species overlap in eastern Queensland.

How big is a laughing kookaburra?

The laughing kookaburra is the heaviest member of the kingfisher family. In body length it is matched by Africa’s giant kingfisher, but it is bulkier, which is why it is often called the largest kingfisher in the world.

Two subspecies are recognized. The nominate form lives in most of eastern Australia, while D. n. minor of Cape York Peninsula in the far north has the same plumage but is noticeably smaller.

Where do laughing kookaburras live?

The native range covers eastern mainland Australia, from Cape York Peninsula south to Cape Otway in Victoria and west into southeastern South Australia as far as the Yorke Peninsula and the Flinders Ranges. It occurs on both sides of the Great Dividing Range.

The species was introduced to several areas, partly because settlers believed it would control snakes. Birds were released in southwest Western Australia from the 1880s and 1890s, in Tasmania from 1906, on Kangaroo Island in 1926 and on Flinders Island around 1940. Governor George Grey released kookaburras on Kawau Island, New Zealand, in the 1860s, and a small population, probably fewer than 500 birds, now breeds on the mainland north of Auckland.

Laughing kookaburras prefer open eucalypt forest and woodland with a grassy or sparse understory, where they can spot prey on the ground. They need old trees with hollows for nesting. They also live along tree-lined roads and fences in farmland and are common in city parks, golf courses and gardens. You can find more of the continent’s wildlife in our guide to Australian animals.

What do laughing kookaburras eat?

Kookaburras are carnivores and sit-and-wait hunters. A bird perches on a branch, post or wire, watches the ground and then drops onto prey with its bill. Small prey is swallowed whole, while larger animals are carried back to a perch and beaten against a branch or the ground until they are dead and soft.

The diet is wide: insects and their larvae, earthworms, snails, spiders, freshwater crayfish (yabbies), frogs, lizards, mice and other small mammals, nestlings and small birds. Kookaburras are famous for killing snakes, including venomous ones, sometimes longer than their own body. They take fish only now and then, for example goldfish from garden ponds. The full menu is explained in What do kookaburras eat?

Despite its name, the kookaburra rarely behaves like the fishing kingfishers of Europe. Why it still belongs to the kingfisher family is covered in Is a kookaburra a kingfisher? For comparison, see the small river-dwelling common kingfisher.

Why do kookaburras laugh?

The laugh is a territorial song. One bird begins with a low chuckle, throws its head back and breaks into loud, rolling “koo-koo-koo-kaa-kaa-kaa” calls, and other family members join in. Neighboring groups often answer, so a whole valley can ring with laughter at dawn and dusk. This habit earned the kookaburra the nickname “bushman’s alarm clock.”

The chorus tells other groups that the territory is occupied and that its owners are many and well coordinated. Young birds learn the full call from their parents after leaving the nest. Kookaburras also use shorter calls, such as a “kooaa” contact call, squawks from begging young, and a deep “chuck” given while feeding chicks. The full story is in Why do kookaburras laugh?

Family life and territory

Laughing kookaburras are sedentary and hold the same territory all year. A breeding pair usually stays together for life and is often joined by up to five grown offspring from earlier years. These helpers, mostly young males, defend the territory, incubate eggs and feed chicks, and they gain experience before breeding themselves.

Neighboring groups settle borders with calling contests and display flights rather than real fights. Inside the group there is a ranking order, set partly through sparring, in which two birds lock bills and twist until one gives up. The breeding pair sits at the top.

Reproduction and life cycle

Breeding takes place mainly from about August to January, with most eggs laid from September to November. The nest is an unlined hollow in a tree or a chamber dug into an arboreal termite mound. The female usually lays three white, rounded eggs, about two days apart.

The parents and helpers share incubation for 24–26 days. Chicks hatch naked and blind and leave the nest at about 32–40 days old. They are fed by the group for another six to ten weeks before they can hunt alone.

Life in the nest can be harsh. Chicks have a sharp hook on the bill, and when food is short the older chicks attack the youngest, which may die. When food is plentiful the adults spend more time brooding and the chicks rarely fight. The hook disappears by the time the young fledge.

Lifespan, predators and threats

How long kookaburras live in the wild is not well documented, but they are long-lived for their size, and captive birds have reached about 27 years. Eggs and nestlings are taken by goannas and snakes, while adults can fall to large birds of prey and owls.

Loss of old hollow-bearing trees reduces nest sites in cleared landscapes, and some birds are killed by cars. Kookaburras also adapt well to suburbs, where they often become very tame. Wildlife authorities in Australia discourage people from feeding them, as handouts are poor food and can make birds bold enough to snatch food from hands and plates.

Conservation status

The IUCN Red List classes the laughing kookaburra as Least Concern because of its very large range and population. One estimate based on typical densities suggests the total population could be in the tens of millions, though this may be too high. Some long-term bird survey data from Australia have recorded fewer sightings since 2000, so researchers continue to watch the trend.

Myths and facts about kookaburras

Myth: kookaburras live in jungles. Thanks to old adventure films, many people link the laugh with tropical rainforest in Africa or South America. In reality the laughing kookaburra is a bird of open Australian eucalypt woodland, and the rainforest scenes were simply dubbed with its call.

Myth: kookaburras are fishing birds. As kingfishers, kookaburras are often imagined diving into rivers. They can catch a fish from shallow water, but nearly all their food is caught on land, and they can live far from any lake or stream.

Fact: they really do kill venomous snakes. Kookaburras tackling venomous snakes, sometimes longer than their own body, have been reported and photographed many times. The bird seizes the snake behind the head, keeping clear of its fangs, and batters it on a branch or the ground. This habit is one reason early settlers protected the species and released it in new areas.

Fact: the laugh is learned. Young kookaburras are not born knowing the full call. They practice with the adults for a couple of weeks after leaving the nest, and at first their efforts sound broken and unfinished.

Kookaburras and people

The name “kookaburra” comes from the Wiradjuri word guguburra. In the 19th century the bird was usually called the “laughing jackass,” and the official name laughing kookaburra was adopted in Australia in 1926. The genus name Dacelo is an anagram of Alcedo, the Latin word for kingfisher.

The species name novaeguineae means “of New Guinea,” a mistake from the 1770s, when the French naturalist Pierre Sonnerat claimed to have seen the bird there. The laughing kookaburra does not live in New Guinea.

The kookaburra is a national icon. It features in the children’s round “Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree,” written by Marion Sinclair in 1934, and a kookaburra named Olly was one of the mascots of the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Its call has been edited into jungle scenes in Hollywood films since the Tarzan movies of the 1930s, even though no kookaburra lives in Africa or South America.