Penniedarling

 Found near the Tennis Court steps early on Tuesday morning by our friend Niall who was doing some gardening for us... a little Kookaburra baby fallen out of it's nest.

Niall watched it while he worked and saw that it's mother and another Kookaburra was constantly keeping an eye on it and feeding it so we left it where it was.  This little Kookaburra moved backwards and forwards slowly away from the road and towards the house keeping nice and close to the brick wall till Niall decided to move it to a safer more protected place.  

Mummy kept going back to where her baby was last seen but when I stood still a little distance away but looking at our baby it's mother dived in with a worm for her.  
 Our little baby was making soft calling noises and it's mother kept coming to feed it. 

David and I kept checking but we decided that maybe it was injured so I rang WIRES and explained, they suggested I call our local Vet which I did and was told to bring her up for them to check over.
 David put her in a little box but Mother appeared and told us off in no uncertain terms... so we put our little baby back in the bushes and I rang the Vet to tell them.
 After watching for another couple of hours we saw no sign of Mother and I was worried about her being so exposed, so we packed her up in the box again and David walked up to the Vets with our little baby safe and sound.
 The Vet checked her out carefully, took our details and we left her.

I slept soundly not having to worry about our little baby outside in the cold.

Then...   late Wednesday afternoon... two people walked down our driveway with a cage in hand and our little baby safely inside.   They were Elizabeth and Paul from Wildlife, they told us that our little Kookaburra had been checked over and was perfectly okay with no injuries and asked if they could settle her back in her home territory...  COULD THEY???    WELL YES!!!

So we tried to work out exactly where the safest place would be to put our baby up in a tree, David got this small box, it was stuffed with leaf mulch, the bottom flap was wired to make the new home safe and secure so she wouldn't fall out and within 10 minutes from first arrival Mother Kookaburra could be seen flying around us... all four of us moved up the driveway a little and watched  from a distance.  

Mother Kookaburra flew in with some delicious morsel then flew to the corner of the house closest to her baby... then very loudly and very long and very clear announced to the whole wide World that her baby was back...  How wonderful is this!


Thursday morning... I woke just before 6 am and couldn't say in bed, I had to check on our baby...

...  She was still asleep :-)   I've put a little stepladder nearby so I can climb up to check on her...  

Good Morning little one...

I've decided to name her, we call our beautiful Water Dragon... Milly, the dog next door is Molly so I've called our baby Kookaburra Mandy  :-) 
Milly Molly Mandy, a much loved series of books from my childhood.

POSTSCRIPT...  As I watched our baby one Kookaburra dug around in our garden, found one great big worm and flew straight to her baby who gobbled her breakfast with a lot of happy noises.    I followed this Mother then I noticed another Kookaburra fly into the baby nest with more yummy worm food... and a THIRD Kookaburra sat on a branch not far away watching.    Three Mothers for our baby Kookaburra, can this be possible.

Labels: Animals, Kookaburra