Kookaburra revived after swallowing unexpected household item
Medical experts were initially stumped as to what was making the kookaburra so unwell.
A fearless laughing kookaburra in search of an easy meal made a terrible mistake in a Sydney backyard that almost cost him his life. It wasn’t until the bird was sedated and X-rayed that medical experts discovered the unexpected household item he'd eaten.
Fairground artist Mark Gill received a call from his wife on Tuesday concerned about the behaviour of the plump little bird that had settled on their back deck.
“He was staring down at the ground, and very still. I stroked him very carefully and he moved. We knew he was alive but obviously something wasn’t right with him,” he told Yahoo News.
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The bird was discovered in the leafy Mosman area, a suburb where locals are famous for their love of their local birds.
Sometimes, they’re even over-loved. If you drive down Military Road down towards Mosman’s Spit Bridge, it’s common to see hundreds of lorikeets and cockatoos flocking around the sides of the road eating white bread. And back in 2010, a large female dubbed Mamma Cass made international headlines for being fed so many sausages she became “too fat to fly”. The feeding only stopped after she was attacked by dogs.
How sick was the kookaburra?
Gill called Australia’s largest wildlife rescue group WIRES for help. “They asked me if I felt confident handling him, and I said: Not really, I’m from London and the biggest birds we have are pigeons,” he told Yahoo News.
The rescuer from WIRES who came to help Gill’s kookaburra has attended to many sick and over-fed kookaburras, but this case was very different.
It wasn’t just that the bird wasn’t able to fly away when he approached, it was completely listless.
“It was almost 5 o’clock, and the [homeowner] was concerned it would get attacked by the local cats,” he said. “I was just able to pick it up with my hands, and originally thought it might have been concussed,” WIRES volunteer Peter Tandy said.
What object was inside the kookaburra?
After the kookaburra was rushed to nearby Taronga Zoo’s wildlife hospital, vets were initially stumped as to what was causing the problem.
“The kookaburra was in good body condition but had laboured breathing and was very quiet. A first assessment couldn’t determine what was wrong with the Kookaburra but a foul smell was noticed coming from its mouth,” a spokesperson for the hospital told Yahoo.
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Determined to solve the mystery of the sick kookaburra, Taronga’s medical team placed him under a general anaesthetic and performed an X-Ray.
“It showed a soft tissue density extending through the body. A foreign body was found deep in the oesophagus,” the spokesperson said.
“Our expert veterinary team carefully removed the object with forceps while still under anaesthetic — which turned out to be an adult ankle sock!”
When Gill heard what the kookaburra had swallowed, he wasn’t overly surprised. There’s a block of apartments nearby and clothes from the balconies are known to blow over.
“Debs, my wife actually found a pair of footy shorts in our yard as well. There were bad winds, and people don’t use pegs anymore for some reason,” he said.
How rare is it for a kookaburra to eat a sock?
Taronga’s wildlife hospitals at Sydney and Dubbo treat around 1,500 cases a year, and while ingestions are common, kookaburras eating socks are extremely “rare”.
“This Laughing Kookaburra is a good reminder that we share our space with wildlife and can all do our part to make better choices to help protect species, particularly by minimising waste, being mindful of how we dispose of items, and reduce reliance on single-use items,” the hospital spokesperson said.
It’s not just Taronga who thought the sock discovery was highly unusual. WIRES vet Dr Tanya Bishop has seen wildlife consume and steal all sorts of objects, but nothing like this.
"I've never heard of a kookaburra eating a sock," she told Yahoo.
“Birds will take things to put in their nests, to soften them. But eating socks, it's odd,” she said. “Snakes will sometimes swallow mistaken prey items, like they've eaten a golf ball instead of an egg.”
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Bishop explained that birds become very adept at stealing from humans. “They get very clever. I saw one distract a person on one side, while the other swooped in and grabbed his sandwich,” she said.
Because Mosman has experienced rain this week, Bishop wonders if the kookaburra mistook the sock for a wet, slippery meal, and gulped it down fast.
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