Magpies were voted Australia's favourite bird last year and they are greatly loved for their complex carolling and calls which stretch across four octaves. Carolling is used to reinforce group bonding before and after territorial skirmishes (a bit like a club's footy song after a game). Magpies also carol at dawn and sometimes throughout the night, especially if there's a full moon. Magpies are great vocal mimics and have been heard to imitate many other bird calls, car alarms, barking dogs and much more. I've been lucky to listen in a few times to a single bird's private vocalisation practise and it is such a joy - with suppressed laughs as a goose honking or koala growl is sounded in between the musical trills and warbles. Here's a link to an ABC page that has a humorous clip of a magpie trying out some sound effects. The page also has some interesting magpie facts. There are 9 recognised subspecies of Australian Magpie. A white- backed form, Gymnorhina tibicen tyrannica, inhabits this part of South Australia and is one of the larger subspecies. Females have some grey in their white backs - although juvenile birds of either sex are hard to distinguish from adult females. In the early days there seemed to be way too many magpies here (groups seldom exceed 24) and a lot of fighting. Looking back I think there were two groups sharing a territorial boundary. One group moved on and the present family numbers less than 20. The alpha couple are the only birds who feed in front of the house but the rest are not far away and seem to have a favourite spot to roost in the garden at night. As you might know I don't directly feed the birds here, but I know many people do enjoy it. Magpies, in particular, will soon make friends with humans who feed them - even entering houses to beg for food. If you do feed the birds, please make sure you're not doing them more harm than good. Bread is especially bad, as I learned when researching for this page, and can cause birth defects in magpie chicks. Read here if you'd like to know why. Magpies can actually hear worms and grubs under the ground, so when you see a bird with its head tilted sideways it is probably listening for its next meal. At around two years of age the surviving juvenile magpies are evicted and form a large group with other youngsters until they can get a territory of their own. Only a small percentage of these birds will go on to successfully breed. So the next time you see a magpie in your yard, bear in mind that it's probably the one you saw yesterday. Magpie families tend to stay put when they've found a suitable territory and magpies live for around 25 years. What's been proven is that the magpie will recognise you - they can tell the difference between us humans, even if we struggle to tell one magpie from another.
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December 2018
January - Superb Fairy-Wren
Feb - Eastern Yellow Robin March - NH Honeyeater April - Crimson Rosella May - Grey Currawong June - Grey Shrike-thrush July - Red-browed Finch Aug - White-browed Babbler Sept - Australian Ringneck Oct - Striated Thornbill Nov-Y-t Black Cockatoo Dec - Australian Magpie |