【明報專訊】Want to laugh your heart out? Then the kookaburra (笑翠鳥) is a bird that you should definitely meet, or rather: hear. This curious bird, found in the woods of Australia, makes a crackling sound that is almost human-like: ''hee hee hee... ha ha!... HA HA HA!!'' For this fun reason, the kookaburra is more commonly called the laughing kookaburra.

Laugh Out Loud

However, the laughing kookaburra is not the happy-go-lucky bird you might imagine: it doesn't make such a funny tone because it is jolly. Its "laughter" is actually a territorial call to warn other birds to stay away! It is often sung in a chorus with other kookaburras in the early morning and evening. This symphony of cackles is so regularly performed that the bird has been given the nickname "Bushman's Alarm Clock"!

Smart-looking expert hunters

In contrast with its hilarious voice, the laughing kookaburra is a stylish-looking, well-built bird. It has a large square head, a powerful long beak, and a strong short neck. Its lower plumage is generally off-white and lightly stripped with brown on the back and wings. The tail is reddish-brown, broadly barred with black. There is a distinctive dark brown eye-stripe across the face.

With a size of up to 43cm and weighing 500g, the laughing kookaburra is the largest bird in the kingfisher (翠鳥) family. It feeds mostly on insects, worms and crabs. Sometimes it will even eat small snakes as well as lizards, snails, frogs, small birds or rodents, such as mice! It eats its small prey (獵物) whole, and it kills its larger prey by battering it against the ground or a tree branch. The banging and bashing also helps to soften the food up before it is gobbled down. The laughing kookaburra is an expert hunter. It usually uses the wait-and-pounce technique by taking up a position high above, and when prey appears, it drops straight down onto the prey from its perch, its wings back and beak ready to snatch!

Committed collective carers

Laughing kookaburras mate for life and retain a stable social system in which only the dominant male and female in a family group will breed. Both of the parents incubate the eggs and care for the little ones. Parenting is not only restricted to the parents in the family - the older siblings play a part as well! As elder brothers or sisters, they also help with parenting duties and even assist in protecting the territory!

The laughing kookaburra may not be an endangered species, but like all other wildlife species, its natural habitat is being threatened by human development. Its laughter is perhaps our wake-up call to begin actively restoring our ecosystems so that all plants and animals, human-beings included, can live together peacefully.

Text and photos: Ocean Park Hong Kong

■Glossary

territorial (adj) 領土的

plumage (n) 全身羽毛

perch (n) 棲息處

snatch (v) 搶

[Smarties' Power English 第245期]