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Kookaburras, Gum Trees, and Snakes!

a. a. gallagher
Petness
Published in
3 min readMay 25, 2021

Up a Gum Tree!

Unsplash — Tarryn Myburgh

Kookaburras are absolutely gorgeous Aussi. birds. They laugh like crazy and make me smile. Quite pretty too.

It is often said that they warn humans about whether there is rain coming and also if there is a snake in the vicinity.

Regular little alarm systems.

It is fascinating to think that a bird can actually kill a snake! But they do and hats off to them.

It was when I was a small girl staying with my grandparents in Moulamein in Victoria that I witnessed a kookaburra swooping down from the top of a gum tree to scoop up breakfast. A snake breakfast!

It took the snake in its beak and flew up to the top of the tree then dropped it down to earth to soften it. This it did about three or four times; a bit like bashing your meat hammer down onto tough steak I guess!

It was an amazing sight. Up. Down. Up. Down. One very busy and hungry Kookaburra!

Unsplash — Rene Riegal

I didn’t see the bird eat the snake thank goodness. And to be honest I thought that they just killed the snakes and not that they ate them!

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Petness
Petness

Published in Petness

A place where you can publish photos and stories about your non-cat animal friends

a. a. gallagher
a. a. gallagher

Written by a. a. gallagher

Thank you for reading & following. I love a jolly good story: I write short stories, enviro. poetry, and kids’ rhymes. Prev. Education includes a. Dip. S.R.M.

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