Black Kookaburra
We have a gang of Kookaburras (or should that be a 'stand up of Kookaburras') that inhabit the reserve next to our house. This afternoon an extended and quite enthusiastic bout of cackling raised my curiosity and I went to investigate. I was surprised to see ten to fourteen kookaburras in close proximity as usually there is only about five to be seen at any one time. A closer look showed they were gathered around two Kookaburras who were locked at the beak over a sizeable morsel of food (possibly a mouse? - actually make that a lizard!).
One of the Kookaburras was black (Anyone seen a Black Kookaburra before?) and at first I thought it was a baby being fed by it's mother... but this was no motherly feeding lesson.
The two duelling birds were making a mighty racket and seemed to be trying their hardest to make the other open their beak by contagious laugher. The battle must have went on for 45 minutes and at times included additional birds (none of whom seemed to be able to get a good enough grip on the morsel at stake)...
In the end the Black Kookaburra jumped off the branch and hung its full weight on the food bundle for a while before the white Kookaburra could hang on no longer.
The black Kookaburra then flew off to a neighbouring tree to tell the world all about his major victory.
An intriguing sight.
Update
I posted a query about this bird on a couple of internet forums and there have been some interesting responses:
http://birdsinbackyards.net/forum/messages.cfm?threadid=49F2914B-9FFB-A95D-F56C4AC9C04C05FE
http://www2b.abc.net.au/science/scribblygum/newposts/348/topic348905.shtm
Update 2
There is also some interesting chatter about this bird on the envirotalk forum.
http://www.envirotalk.com.au/forum/index.php?showtopic=7818
(As also reported by Wombat Bob in the comments below) the Black Kookaburra apparently has a generic mutation called hyper-melanism which is (kinda) the opposite of albinism.
Location
These photo's were taken in Port Macquarie on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales.
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Date: 01/02/08
Owner: Tod Lavis
Size: 10 items
(28 items total)
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Recent comments
thanks wombat bob
Wombat Bob,
Thanks for the info very interesting.
These photo's were taken in Port Macquarie on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales.
Posted by Tod Lavis on Mon Jan 7 14:16:12 2008
Black Kookaburra
Apparently it is not unknown and is what is known as melanistic (an overburden of melanin - opposite of Albino). I am curious to know where the pictures were taken.
Posted by wombat.bob@bordernet.com.au (guest) on Fri Jan 4 12:42:58 2008