Pastel on Supertooth paper

30 x 45 cm

Original SOLD

We share our lives here in the Grampians National Park with a family of 9 laughing kookaburras who nest every spring in the same hollow of a giant eucalypt just across the road. ‘Kookas’ as Australians casually refer to them, are long-lived and form extended families, working together with chick raising, feeding and child-minding duties. Only the dominant pair breeds and will stay together for years with the whole family vigorously defending its territory with their world famous and joyous laughing call.

‘Our’ kookas arrive punctually each morning to consume their regular raw meat breakfast on our back verandah. This meal is always a boisterous and happy affair with much squealing purring and beak wrestling over who gets fed first and how much. Sometimes, if your fingers aren’t nimble enough, you will get a misdirected pinch from that razor sharp beak and you will understand just how kookas are able to eat insects, frogs, small birds and snakes and virtually any creature up to the size of a black rat.