Kookaburra with fat grub

by CALLY
I took the turn-off into Kuitpo Forest to see what I could see.....It all looked pretty quiet and empty apart from a few butterflies rising up from the mown grass. A kookaburra flashed by, as they do, and landed on a bough. And I took photos of said kookaburra looking cute on the branch, as many have done.It was sitting there, alert, clearly looking for food and made a sudden dive to the ground. Chomp chomp. It obviously got something tasty, I couldn't see what. It flew off but returned moments later & repeated the process. I was interested & snuck closer to where it sat. It tolerated my closeness. Again it dived down & grabbed something (It turned out to be a skink but i didn't know this until I saw my photo enlarged later) and flew back in the same direction as previously. I'm now guessing it was taking food to its young. Kookie reappeared, settle on a different tree, quite low down this time - so clearly I wasn't upsetting it- and resumed its surveillance of the ground. Then it dived and proceeded to drive its beak into the ground, up down up down, until suddenly it was holding a squirming grub. I've never seen a kookaburra hunt before, and this bird had scored plenty in just minutes. It was hard to decide which shot to put in for the blip -I really liked the one that captured it with its head down and beak nearly buried. But I've chosen the one where it has a lovely gleam in its eye and food in its bill.