Suffolk kookaburra: Stunning new photos of the elusive Australian bird thousands of miles from home

A nature lover has managed to snap some stunning shots of Suffolk's elusive resident kookaburra, after a close encounter of the bird kind.

The kookaburra, part of a family of birds native to Australia known for their cackling 'laugh', caused quite a flap on social media last week, after it was filmed in Suffolk - more than 9,000 miles from home. The Suffolk Wildlife Trust earlier said that the bird in question has actually called the area home for quite some time, being periodically spotted around Sudbury since at least 2015.

Local wildlife enthusiast Allegra Loch told NationalWorld she also had the pleasure of seeing the Aussie native up close in recent days, after it swooped down and up in front on her car on her drive home. "I immediately - despite the fast nature of it while driving - realised it wasn’t a native bird with that beak," she said.

She managed to find a safe spot to pull in and raced to have a quick look for it, with her efforts earning her about 30 snaps of the beautiful bird as it struck a pose from its treetop perch. "Thank goodness I had my camera in the car and managed to find it!"

Allegra said she was "chuffed to bits" with her rare sighting, "especially since I wasn’t even looking for it".

The Suffolk Wildlife Trust believe the local kookaburra to be an escapee, although they don't know where it might have escaped from. The bird has been seen alive and well a number of times over the past nine years, and seemed to be in good health and thriving.

Kookaburras can live for over 20 years, and the Trust said it seemed to have made itself quite at home in Suffolk - which is one of the UK's warmest and driest counties - and so could be around for many more years to come.

Suffolk is not the only part of the UK where kookaburras have been seen in the wild in the last few years. There have also been sightings in Sussex in 2022, and Devon in 2020.

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

They can also eat a wide range of foods - from frogs and lizards, to mice, to beetles and worms - which has no doubt helped the escapees to thrive in the UK.