Great Backyard Bird Off - Australia (poll 6)
choose your bird
Laughing Kookaburra
Weebill
Bird Support
Laughing Kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae)
"This bird encourages you to laugh back at them. Who doesn't need more of that in their life?"
"They're beautiful. They're loud enough to wake the dead. They're canonically gay, seriously, look up the original version of 'kookaburra sitting in the old gum tree'"
"These guys are probably one of the biggest reason I fell in love with birds - all thanks to the friendly family of kookaburras that lived near my grandfather's place."
"It has a very distinctive laugh. It’s weirdly everywhere, go to a park and the chances of finding it are like 30% on a given day. Also iconic."
"Is there any bird more iconic to Australia than the Laughing Kookaburra? Their distinctive laughing call makes me feel at home. Also, one did once steal a chicken drumstick out of my uncle's hand (just swooped down and snatched it), which is also iconic behaviour."
Weebill (Smicrornis brevirostris)
"Absolute truth in advertising, they are so wee! Really just ridiculously tiny."
Remarkably tiny bird with very short, stubby bill. Upperparts gray-brown, underparts variably cream and yellow, with pale eyebrow and pale eye. Inhabits dry, open woodlands, especially eucalypt forests. Very vocal as it forages in trees, where it feeds primarily on insects, sometimes in mixed flocks with thornbills and pardalotes. Distinctive loud song, given year-round, often rendered “I’m a wee-bill!” (eBird)
image sources: kookaburra (Elspeth M), weebill (Lachlan Read)
