An incredibly rare black kookaburra has been spotted for the first time in decades hanging out in a man’s backyard.
Experts are still baffled by the occasional crop up of albino birds, but say the all black kookaburra is rarer still.
Luckily, the Western Australian resident who first saw the bird in his backyard is an amateur photographer, and managed to get some shots of the unique bird.
An incredibly rare black kookaburra (pictured) has been spotted for the first time in decades hanging out in a man’s backyard
‘I saw this black bird on the garden shed and I said to my wife, crikey, that looks like a kookaburra,’ he told ABC.
Records state the bird has only ever been spotted once before in Western Australia, in a town named Coolup, 100 kilometers south of Perth.
Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions ornithologist Allan Burbidge said a black kookaburra in WA had been documented in 1951.
‘Since then, I don’t know if there have been others, but I know of some reports from Victoria and south-east Queensland.’
The iconic Australian laughing bird naturally has white, brown and blue feathers.
Experts have put the colouring of the bird has been put down to a genetic mutation, similar to that of an albino bird.
However, specialists say albino birds are 20 times more common than a stark black bird.
The photographer was thrilled to have spotted the wild bird through the kitchen window of his Manjimup property, 300 kilometers south of Perth.
The iconic Australian laughing bird naturally has white, brown and blue feathers, with experts saying the black bird is due to a genetic mutation