When he was 8 he found an injured kookaburra on the front lawn of our house.
It was being swooped, attacked and pecked by a half a dozen magpies.
He came in to get me and with our arms waving and much noise we shooed the magpies away.
But each time we went away the magpies returned to the kill.
I told Kel we would have to bring the kookaburra into our house to protect it from its tormentors.
“He’ll try to bite you. Won’t he?” said Kel
I told Kel I didn’t know what would happen.
I threw an old towel over the kookaburra, picked him up carefully and brought him into our house.
There was no struggle.
Kel made our small, outside laundry into a comfortable room for our injured guest to rest safely. He covered the washing machine with a sheet and put newspaper in a cardboard box to make a nest. He kept half the laundry stable door closed to stop predators getting in.
The bird had a lame wing and one eye missing but he kept his one good eye on us at all times.
Kel named the bird Kookie.
“What will he eat?” said Kel
I told him I didn’t know but we tried bacon and Kookie loved it.
Kel put a small plate near the nest box and we checked on Kookie, and brought him bacon, regularly.
A neighbour told me there was a native animal rescue centre at a sanctuary not far away. I told Kel that Kookie would stay the night with us and we could take him to the sanctuary the next morning.
“They will know what’s best for him.” I said.
Before nightfall Kel was thrilled to find Kookie would take bacon pieces off his palm.
“Can we keep him?” said Kel
I told him we really didn’t know how to look after a kookaburra.
“They’re wild animals. They’re not meant to live with humans.”
In the morning we fed Kookie quite a lot of bacon for breakfast. He let us put him back in his box which we covered with a towel. Kel got in the car and with Kookie’s box on his lap we drove carefully to the animal sanctuary.
At the sanctuary there was a guy and a girl at the front desk in park ranger outfits who smiled and thanked us for doing the right thing. We said goodbye to Kookie and handed him over to them. They gave us back the towel.
Later that afternoon we went for a swim at the beach and I asked Kel if he would like to drop in to see how Kookie was going. He said he would, so we drove back to the sanctuary.
When we asked at the desk how Kookie was going the ranger guy told us that, sadly, Kookie had been put to sleep.
He said, “A bird with one eye can’t survive in the wild.”
I stood in shocked silence for a moment not really hearing anything else the man was saying.
I looked at Kel and he looked at me.
Shame. Failure.
We left without a word, my head full of feelings I had never felt before.
Some time later Kel said to me quietly, ” He could have lived with us.”
“Yes. He could have.” I said.
“If I had known, I would have done things differently.”
Kel is 15 now. Every now and then we still talk about what happened.
What we felt and what we learnt during our two days with Kookie still guides us in some ways.
Who would think that a kookaburra could give us so much.
Now wouldn’t it be great if I had a pic of Kookie to show you.
A picture of a significant event shared by Kel and I.
