Kookaburras in Sydney’s North Shore Back Yard

Love native birds enough to leave them wild — please don’t feed them.

In the leafy backyards of Sydney’s North Shore, kookaburras are a familiar and much-loved presence, their rolling laughter often echoing through the early morning and late afternoon air. Drawn to mature trees, open lawns, and well-established gardens, they naturally hunt insects, small reptiles, and mammals — a diet that keeps them healthy and wild. Although they may appear comfortable around people, feeding kookaburras provides unbalanced nutrition, disrupts natural hunting behaviour, encourages large numbers of birds to congregate in one place, and increases the risk of disease transmission. It can also lead to birds becoming dependent and wrongly perceived as nuisances. Kookaburras are at their best when left to live as they have evolved to live — free, self-reliant, and wild.