Kookaburra bites off more snake than it can chew
When Amanda De George heard chuckling birds in her backyard, she discovered it was no laughing matter.
My home is a tiny cottage, surrounded by the Australian bush, loads of wildlife, and just enough people for it to feel neighbourly, but not so many people that you feel uncomfortable wandering around taking photographs in your pyjamas and a pair of flip-flops. There’s always something interesting going on and when I hear the resident kookaburra family start to roar with laughter, I try to head outside, as it usually signals that an event worth looking at is about to unfold.
On this particular morning, an adult and newly fledged baby were throwing their heads back and chuckling heartily away on the wires out front. I ran outside to get some photographs of them. But about a metre away there was a very heavy thud and the sound of leaves being crunched and rustled about. And then silence. I turned to find a lovely big kookaburra sitting on the ground – and it had an awfully big ‘something’ grasped tightly in its beak.
In the beautiful dappled light of the gum trees, it was difficult to decipher the kookaburra among the fallen leaves with… what exactly was that hanging from its
beak? My mind turned the image over and over. A giant brown earthworm?
The kookaburra clamped its beak down more tightly on the creature’s black head. Then it flipped the long, thin, scaled body around in its mouth. A red-bellied black snake, and a young one at that! Just as my brain finally put two and two together, the kookaburra flew up into the nearest tree, with the snake still in its mouth.
Now, if you’ve never seen a kookaburra prepare food for eating, it’s a pretty violent affair. This snake was whacked and thrashed and bashed repeatedly against a thick branch until it was totally dead and deliciously tenderised. I watched in total and utter amazement as the bird began to swallow the snake whole, starting with the head. With each gulp, more and more of the snake disappeared, and with the third and final gulp and one last curl of its tail, the snake was gone.
Note to self: choose appropriate footwear when taking photographs in your pyjamas!
The snake was whacked and thrashed and bashed until it was totally dead.