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Feathers, Fur and Fins: Observing a kookaburra

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A kookaburra sits on a tree branch
Feathers, Fur and Fins: Observing a kookaburra

SUBJECTS:  Science

YEARS:  F–2, 3–4


Watch a wild kookaburra being fed by hand.

Don Spencer handles an injured kookaburra that is being nursed back to health.

It will be set free once it is well again.

See where kookaburras make their homes and listen to the laughing call of the kookaburra.


Things to think about

  1. 1.What do kookaburras look like? What does a kookaburra's call sound like? Can you make a sound like a kookaburra's call?
  2. 2.Where do kookaburras make their homes? How does a kookaburra's colouring help it to survive? Look closely at how the kookaburra uses its beak. What shape is its beak? What does a kookaburra eat?
  3. 3.Tell someone else what a kookaburra needs to live. Say where here it nests and what it eats. Observe (look carefully at) the colours and markings of a kookaburra. Draw a kookaburra, showing its colours and markings. Show how it blends into a gum tree (eucalyptus).
  4. 4.Draw a picture of a kookaburra's beak and what it eats. It's a meat eater. It eats lizards, worms and small snakes. Find pictures of the beaks of different types of birds. Next to each each picture draw what each bird eats. What do you notice about the beaks of each bird?



Date of broadcast: 19 Aug 1986


Copyright

Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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