Crikey mate: Kookaburra bird spotted in Suffolk - 9,000 miles from its native Australia

An iconic outback bird has caused quite a flap, after it was spotted in the UK - more than 9,000 miles from home.

The kookaburra, a family of birds native to Australia and known for their cackling 'laugh', was filmed in Suffolk this week. The Suffolk Wildlife Trust is aware of the bird, but spokesman Jack Cripps told NationalWorld the kookaburra in question has actually called the area home for quite some time, being seen around the Sudbury area of Suffolk since 2015.

It was first recorded in the Suffolk Naturalists' Society bird report that year, Mr Cripps continued. "It would be an escapee, however it's not known from where the bird escaped."

The bird seemed to be faring okay, he said, given the species was adapted to much warmer climes. "The bird has been seen alive and well over the past 9 years. Kookaburra can live for over 20 years, and as it seems to have made itself at home in Suffolk - which is one of the UK's warmest and driest counties - it could be around for many more years to come," he said.

Kookaburras are tree-dwelling birds in the kingfisher family. As well as Australia, they can be found living in nearby Papua New Guinea, and thrive in habitats from Australia's barren and arid plains, to suburban neighbourhoods.

In terms of conservation, kookaburras are doing well - with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classifying all species as of least concern. This is not the only time a kookaburra has been spotted in the wild in the UK. NationalWorld's sister title SussexWorld reports that two joggers spotted one of the Aussie icons in Burgess Hill, Sussex, in 2022.

Two years earlier, in 2020, residents of the small Devon village of Membury were stunned to spot a kookaburra in a local garden. The bird was thought to have escaped from a nearby wildlife park somehow, which was closed at the time due to the coronavirus pandemic.

There is also a population of escaped wallabies, a small, kangaroo-like mammal, in the UK. They are descended from escapees from zoos and private collections, which were brought over from Tasmania over a century ago.