birding-aus

KOOKABURRA WITH CANE TOAD

To: <>
Subject: KOOKABURRA WITH CANE TOAD
From: <>
Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2012 15:08:47 +1100
hi Glen, 

I had a very tame female BW kookaburra in my backyard for years. One day I 
watched her drop down and grab a medium sized (guess 6cm) Cane toad from the 
ground, fly back to her branch, belt it many, many times, and then eat it. I 
have photos of her doing this. I watched her subsequently to see what would 
happen. She then flew down and grabbed a Glaphyromorphus punctulatus (a skink), 
fly back to her branch, belt repeatedly, and eat it. Again, photographed. After 
about 20 minutes, she started to look ill, head down, beak slightly open. She 
sat like this for about 30 minutes after swallowing the toad. 

At minute 50 she started dribbling profusely with her head down. I went and 
waited below her. She regurgitated the toad, but not the skink, despite the 
fact that she ate the skink after the toad. Quite a talent. After that she 
looked fine, and started hunting beetle grubs again where I was working in the 
garden. As of me leaving that residence a few years ago, she was fine.

Cheers,

Eric

On 08/10/2012, at 1:33 PM, "Glen Taylor" <> wrote:

> We had a (young) kookaburra in our backyard with a cane toad in its bill 
> hitting it against a rock. My wife having some concern for the kookaburra 
> (certainly none for the cane toad) got it to drop the toad and it crawled 
> away. Any other instances of a kookaburra trying to kill a cane toad? or seen 
> eating one?
> 
> Glen Taylor (Brisbane) 
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