Often, just as I’m struggling with something difficult in the garden, a kookaburra will explode into infectious laughter, seemingly at my expense. Two or three others will join in the merriment until there’s a chorus of them. I sometimes think that this would be a perfect home for a stand-up comedian. Rehearse in the garden and you’ll probably get a laugh.

If I’m feeling hot and bothered I sometimes shout ‘Shut up!’ at them. Very bad form, particularly as I once read that if you badmouth a kookaburra, you’ll end up with a crooked tooth. Which led me to the question: Are these birds in league with orthodontists?

Although their timing is impeccable, the kookaburras aren’t really laughing at my antics. They’re telling their neighbours that this is their territory, and nobody else’s. It must be the most genial-sounding warning in the world.

On the other hand a brief chuckle is a call to family members, with the answering chuckle indicating the relative’s location.

Then there’s the ‘chuck’, an abbreviated chuckle. This, too, locates family members but only in the breeding season, said to be between September and December. Around here, though, that seems to be happening earlier each year. The other day I saw a kookaburra disappear into a hole high in a eucalypt trunk where there’s probably a nest.

If you live in the city and you feed meat to kookaburras, you’ll be familiar with their squawk. While this is a demand for food, it’s also issued as a way of pulling troublesome family members into line. You’ll mostly hear the squawk in the breeding season.

Delivered sotto voce, the soft squawk calms a breeding female during courtship. You could say it’s the Barry White voice of the kookaburra world.

If you hear a kookaburra cackle, it means there’ll soon be a stoush – it’s the call to battle. After that, you’re likely to hear a cry of ‘kooaa’, issued as a warning to the family group to prepare.

I was getting ready for a trip into town yesterday when from the corner of my eye I noticed a movement on the tree outside.

A kookaburra was sitting in the fruit tree, surveying an area of the garden where a Grey Currawong had been pecking about earlier, probably for slugs, worms or perhaps a frog.

In this region, the kookaburra’s full title is the Southern Great Brown Kingfisher, or Laughing Kookaburra (Dacelo gigas). A smaller subspecies is the Dacelo gigas minor. The Blue-winged Kookaburra (Dacelo leachii) inhabits northern coastal areas of Australia.

Our variety of kookaburra is also found in wooded areas in the north of the country, along the east coast, in Tasmania and New Zealand, and in the south-west of Western Australia where it was introduced after becoming extinct. Wherever there’s open woodland, kookaburras live in pairs or small groups.

Much of the following information is due to the work of  Veronica Parry, an American biology student who fell in love with kookaburras after seeing them at the San Diego Zoo. In the 1960s, after studying the behaviour of the birds in their native habitats in Australia, she earned a doctorate at Melbourne’s Monash University.

Like most other kingfishers, kookaburras nest in holes, usually natural hollows in trees or excavated termite nests. The nest chambers in trees are usually level with the entrance hole to make it possible for chicks to – ahem! – excrete clear of the nest.

Between September and December each year, a female will lay between two and four eggs, helped along by her mate, who collects food for her. Both adults and their younger progeny incubate the eggs for about 25 days. As only one egg a day is laid, only one chick per day hatches. I’ve read that kookaburra chicks are fiercely competitive and are likely to try to kill each other if left unsupervised.

While the young leave the nest when they’re about a month old, the parents continue to feed them for another 40 days. Isn’t that so like the younger generation – all freedom and no responsibility?

But this lengthy nurturing does pay off because the older siblings help incubate the eggs and later feed and protect the chicks and fledglings. Known as ‘auxiliaries’, some of these carers will remain with the breeding pair for several years, foregoing procreation to help raise and protect the family, much like unmarried aunts and bachelor uncles once did in human families.

The kookaburra mates for life. That’s why you’ll often see them in pairs. When a family roosts on a branch, they’ll sometimes bunch closely together, producing a long line of feathers and beaks.

Intensely territorial, a kookaburra family will lay a permanent claim to an area. The larger the family, the better the defence of their territory.

As indicated by the size and shape of their beaks, kookaburras enjoy a diet of meat including snakes and lizards, frogs, mice, insects, worms and occasionally small birds. Because most of its food is earthbound, the kookaburra spends a good deal of time on the ground, making itself an easy target for wedge-tailed eagles.

To avoid becoming dinner, the kookaburra escapes the eagle’s beady eye by standing totally still and pointing its bill at the sky. From above, the merry ‘king of the bush’ appears as just another stick among many. Not even the slightest giggle gives it away.

Acknowledgements: Australian Wildlife Cam – A Gould Group Initiative, The Australian Naturalist Library – Bird Life by Ian Rowley, published by William Collins (Australia) Ltd, 1975