Kookaburra sits on the old gum tree....

Here is a lovely shot of Eastern beach, Geelong, taken on a lovely suny day. Doesn't it make you want to race down and have a swim. The photo was taken from the Geelong Botanical Gardens on a sunny winter's day, in July. Our garden group had gone to look at the Australian Dry Garden (ho.hum!) I had seen it several times before so take myself off for a short walk and some photograpy.
Eastern Beach Geelong

Jordan and Harrison looking at the kookaburra in his tree.

Here is the fellow they were looking at, in all his feathery glory. They do like to get up close and personal, these birds.

The idea is to take along some bread or something that they might like to snack on, and they will sometimes even out of your hand.

Nicholas, Daniel, Grandad and I had the experience of them being a bit too close and personal.

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree,

Now he has his foot in my cup of tea.....

That is exactly what happened. A friend had told us about the scavenging birds, and so off we set with our picnic basket and thermos just to see what would happen. We each had our drink, and a scone (biscuit) and some biscuits (cookies) and were happily munching when a whirr of wings and a squawk announced the arrival of the first of several birds. The beady eye was fixed on a scone, and before the boys had a chance to even blink, the kookaburra had snatched the scone from Daniel's hand. But that wasn't enough. Nicholas and Grandad were smart enough to gobble their scones down, and I managed to hide mine under my hand - I thought. Next thing the bird was sitting on my cup, one foot in the tea and staring beadily at my hand. 'I can see you've got food and I am not moving until you give it to me" was his attitude. Eventually I broke off a bit of scone and the bird deigned to take it from my hand, but sat on waiting for me. Eventually I gave in, and he very kindly removed himself from my cup and onto the table, searching around for more, and eyeing everybody suspiciously until he was convinced that there was no more food, at which stage he flew into the gum tree just behind us, and announced with a great chortle that he had fooled the humans again. The boys were beside themselves with excitement. Daring to try to swim in grandma's cuppa was not the way to go!

Unfotunately Harrison and Jordan were unable to get quite this close and personal with the birds. They did get to hear them go off into peals of raucous laughter.