THE next avian recruit to the flying display team at the Scottish Owl Centre could soon be a bird originating from the other side of the world.

The centre, the largest in the world with more than 100 owls from 40 species, isn’t joking when it says it has acquired a potential breeding pair of laughing kookaburras and hopes are high that chicks may appear in the new year.

The distinctive cackling call kookaburras make to give them their name already resonates regularly round the centre at Polkemmet Country Park to announce their presence.

If the new kookaburra breeding programme is successful, at least one chick will be imprinted from the moment it opens its eyes so that it is entirely settled and content in human company.

It will be given a stage name before joining the star-attraction display team.

Last weekend it was Hudson, the Great Horned Owl, and Fetlar, the Snowy Owl, who entertained the crowds in the specially built indoor arena.

Kookaburras, the largest of the kingfisher family, are native to eastern Australia where they are regarded as a symbol of good luck.

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Now this pair have had their own stroke of luck by finding a home at a centre aiming to explain and promote the unique charm and charisma of owls.

“There is no particular reason why there should be kookaburras at an owl centre,” said Rod Angus, an experienced ornithologist and owner of the SOC. “We had a pair before but they were siblings and not suitable for breeding. They were killed in a wild mink attack. We had an idea with this new pair of using them to get some variation, not too much, in birds for our flying display team. We have never tried to breed them before so it is a case of trial and error. We will see what works best for them.

“If all goes well and we do manage to train a young bird I doubt if we will be able to get them to laugh on command at first. They are not robots. In their aviary they do spark off each other and when one starts it soon develops into bouts of that special manic laughter.”

The SOC was founded in 2003 in the former Witchburn Hospital at Campbeltown, Kintyre, as a small collection of captive-bred birds and a visitors centre dedicated to owls and their conservation. It expanded and spread its wings to move to its present site at Whitburn in central Scotland in 2012.

The mission statement on the SOC website reads: “Our motto ‘Education, Inspiration, Conservation’ reflects the hope that by bringing the public face to face with owls in all their beauty and by increasing public knowledge of the environmental issues which affect their survival, we will inspire greater interest in the wider conservation concerns of our world today.”