Though lizards, small mammals and fledgling birds form the bulk of their diet, laughing kookaburras sometimes eat snakes. They grab one just behind the head and either batter it unconscious on a perch or drop it to its death from a height before eating it. Kookaburras sometimes enter gardens and backyards in search of food, where they occasionally steal eggs and chicks from henhouses. They usually nest in the tops of hollow trees, where the parents take turns to incubate the eggs. If one bird is late for its shift, the other cries out with its famous laughing call until it arrives.