Lucky Kookaburras—Bought a Lotto Ticket

Yesterday evening we had a few people around for ‘pizza in the pergola’. One of those that came along was our backyard left diagonal neighbour (BLDN for short). Meaning that if you stood in my backyard looking towards my back fence (must paint that one day) she lives in the house in the yard that is diagonally across to the left—if that makes it any clearer.

Anyway, when she came around she had four Kookaburras follow her. Seriously. They followed her around from her place to our place.

It seems that they had been having a good time in her back yard and she feed them some bits and pieces of food. So when she packed up and headed off to come around to our mini-pizza-party in the pergola they actually following her. They flew. They didn’t hop along the ground; just in case you are getting the wrong visuals on this little story.

So when she arrived here so did four rather tame, canvasing for more food, Kookaburras.

Following are  few snaps I took. They are pretty ‘average’ shots but I had to dive inside, grab my camera with whatever lens it had on it (which was my 50 – 200 Pentax f4 zoom), and snap off a couple of frames in the dull dying evening light.

The bird in the above shot is basically in the pergola and is looking over at the table.

This guy, presumably a brother or sister of the one in the pergola, is sitting on the brick wall that goes around the pergola. He is waiting in anticipation of getting some mince from someone approaching from the left.

This shot of the third bird shows him sitting on the edge of a pot plant with some mince in his beak. He is not perfectly in focus because ,in my rush to snap the shot, I think that the camera has locked focus on the branch of the plant in the pot and I didn’t notice this in the viewfinder at the time. These are the mistakes you make when you are rushing, even when you have been taking pictures for 30+ years.

Anyway, my Aunty Maud (seriously, that was her name) used to tell me when I was a wee-un (i.e., very young), that a laughing Kookaburra in your yard meant good luck was on its way. Now I don’t recall any of these four Kookaburras having a laugh when they were in my yard (they were too busy eating) but I am working on the theory here that if you have four Kookaburras in your yard then even if they don’t laugh surely the good luck will still come pouring in.

So I went out and bought a lotto ticket in tonight’s draw.

I will let you know how it goes.