The Laughing Kookaburra

Our nature photographer, Jessica Moses, has been to Askham Bryan College Wildlife & Conservation Park to photograph the kookaburra.

The kookaburra is the largest member of the kingfisher family. It has a large bill that has a black upper mandible and a tan lower mandible. The laughing kookaburra also has a white belly, a whitish head, brown wings, a brown back and dark brown eye-stripes. The laughing kookaburra gets it name from the loud territorial sound that it makes, The calls are often mistaken for donkeys or monkeys.

Kookaburras are fairly adaptable in their habitat but they do require forest areas for finding food and nesting. They benefit from living within Australia, a country that has some of the strictest animal control laws in the world. The habitats, however, are not as strongly protected as the animals.

The kookaburra has been assessed for The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species in 2016, confirming this species is listed as Least Concern.