The mocking laughter of the kookaburra may be regarded by the world at large as Australia's most recognisable bird call, but it was never heard in Perth until more than 75 years after European settlement.

In the same way that homesick British migrants released their familiar songbirds such as sparrows and starlings into the Australian environment (with some devastating results to crops over east), some nostalgic eastern staters decided WA wasn't Australia without kookaburras and set hundreds of Victorian birds free from Perth Zoo and elsewhere between 1897 and 1912.

Kookaburra pictured in Guildford. Picture: Allen Newton

By 1919 they were well established in the metropolitan area and the Vasse area, and today they are widespread throughout the South West.

"Kookaburra" is an eastern Aboriginal word that, like many Noongar bird names, mimics the bird's chortling cry.