birding-aus

Kookaburras, Termite Mounds & Mudbrick Homes!

To: Birding-Oz <>
Subject: Kookaburras, Termite Mounds & Mudbrick Homes!
From: Timothy Hyde <>
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2002 12:11:59 -0700
We thought some of you might be interested in this report that
my partner Lynda just wrote up for the Blue Mountains WIRES newsletter.
Any thoughts, experiences or advice on the situation would be welcome.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kookaburras, Termite Mounds & Mudbrick Homes!

What do these have in common? Well, going by a group of Kookas in Wentworth Falls, termite mounds and mud brick homes look pretty much the same.

When Peter Foster rang me this week with a story from a member of the public who had a Kookaburra burrowing into the front of her house, well I just had to see this for myself. But first I did a bit of reading about Kookaburra nesting habits. And there it was in Graham Pizzy's "Field guide to the birds of Australia." "Nest on decayed debris in hollow trunk, occasionally in a hole in creek bank, termite nest, haystack or cavity in wall.

But this wasn't a pre existing cavity, we were told they were digging the hole themselves. Was this possible?

So armed with binoculars, spotting scope and digital camera I arrived at Lynne's place. As I pulled into her driveway I could see a beautiful mud brick home with a high pitched roof. A round stained glass window was in the centre of the front wall. Just above and to the right of the window, could be seen a small hole approx 15 cm in diameter.

As I stopped the car a Kooka flew from the hole to a nearby branch to join it's scruffy mate. Lynne showed me around the house and explained that they dug from sunrise to sunset, which echoed through the house, which to my surprise was only one brick thick. (approx 40 cm) . Those birds may get a bigger cavity than they bargained for if they break through to the other side.

As we discussed this fact, Lynne's familiar sound returned. "Scrape - Scrape..." I was outside in a flash, scope ready, camera in hand. The hole was now filled with the backend of a Kookaburra wriggling and scraping. Then suddenly a great cloud of dust was flushed from the hole. The bird was then joined by the other, who seemed happy with the progress and then returned to it's branch.

These birds are persistent. They had to break through chicken wire spread on the wall to get to the bricks. Lynne has agreed to let the birds continue their work and hopefully raise a couple of chicks, then we are going to try and provide some alternative nesting accommodation in place of the wall, a "possum box" style nest box with Kookaburra dimensions fixed to the house.

The digital photos came out quite well, available on request.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lynda Holmes  & Timothy Hyde
Blue Mountains / Capertee Valley


Birding-Aus is on the Web at
www.shc.melb.catholic.edu.au/home/birding/index.html
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message
"unsubscribe birding-aus" (no quotes, no Subject line)
to 


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
  • Kookaburras, Termite Mounds & Mudbrick Homes!, Timothy Hyde <=
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU