Stories from my Sketchbook . . . 

There is a bit fat beautiful kookaburra that comes to visit my house most days.

Rather than the gumtree, he prefers to sit on the birdbath just outside my living room window.  The window is a large one and on the inside there is a little sill where the dogs like to sit, leaning up against the warm glass, watching the world go by.  The bird bath is about 2 feet in front of that the window (as the kookaburra flies) and sits almost at eye-level with the girls.

He’s clever, this kooka.   He knows the dogs can see him  . . . and he also knows they can’t get at him.   He will descend gently onto the rim of the birdbath, fix them with his beady eye, and then, when he has their full attention, he will begin his ablutions, carefully primping and preening his feathers until he has them just right—and then, suddenly, he will bomb the birdbath, sending water splashing all over the window.  It sends the girls into a mad salivating frenzy every time.

And when he has them all wound up and running back and forth along the sill, barking frantically, he will become bored with their noise, slowly turn, give them one final look over his shoulder and with a throaty chuckle, he’s gone.

It then falls to me to spend the next 10 minutes trying to calm down three agitated, steamed up and completely over-excited little dogs.

Thanks for that mate . . .

 Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree,
Merry merry king of the bush is he.
Laugh, Kookaburra, laugh, Kookaburra,
Gay your life must be!

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree,
Eating all the gum drops he can see.
Stop Kookaburra, stop Kookaburra
Save some there for me!

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree,
Counting all the monkeys he can see.
Stop Kookaburra, Kookaburra stop.
That’s not a monkey, that’s me!

Marion Sinclair’s Kookaburra Song won a competition run by the Girl Guides Association of Victoria and was first performed at the World Jamboree in Frankston, Victoria in 1934.