Before I even knew what a kookaburra was, I knew the song with the lyrics, “Laugh, Kookaburra. Laugh Kookaburra.” I later found out the kookaburra was a bird and that its call sounded like laughter. Not so fast, my friend.
These two beauties were in the rain forest on Fraser Island. It’s almost as if they composed this shot themselves, just waiting for me to come by with my camera. But they didn’t make any noise, and it was another week or so before I heard what a kookaburra really sounds like.
We were staying at the edge of the Grampians National Park, named for the small mountain range in southwest Victoria it comprises. At dusk, from at least a hundred yards away, came an arrestingly loud sound that my wife and I at first thought must be monkeys having a fight. It was an “ooh ooh ooh aah aah aah” noise—the kind you might make if you were trying to imitate a chimpanzee’s vocalizations. We couldn’t see what was making the noise, even though it was so loud we thought it might be in a tree right outside of our cabin.
And that’s what kookaburras sound like. We heard them several more times, always in the early morning or at dusk. Laughter? That’s not how either of us would describe it.