A study of Magpies

[watt price tully]

I was listening to this on the way to work on Sunday Morning at 6.30 am. I was hoping it would be a good omen: A Radio national programme.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/offtrack/magpie-behaviour-is-not-just-black-and-white/6746240

Hope you enjoy it Tannin & everyone else.

Cheers WPT

[3.14159]

Thanks for that WPT.
Magpies are indeed very good at "carolling"...
Coooooolllllllliiiiiinnngggggwwwooooooooooodddd!
Coooooolllllllliiiiiinnngggggwwwooooooooooodddd!
ad infinitum...

The last flat I lived in Melb I had 5 generations of Magies come for a feed.
It started when a family arrived and not long after, the male was taken by a cat so I literally lent a hand to bring up her kids (I had them taking food from my hand with-in a week or 2).
The parents would raise a pair and bequeath it to the female offspring who would raise her brood and leave it to 1 of her offspring.
They would call and sing and there really was a variation that meant different things but I couldn't distinquish much more then
"I've been fed and I'm happy",
"this is patch EFF OFF"
and "Hey giant monkey, I'm hungry, where's my breakfast???"

A few months after I left, I returned to pick up my mail and I had 3 of the clan come down from the trees and sing and dance around me.
I had a muselli bar in my pocket and hand fed them for the last time.
I don't feed the magies up here, they tend to drive the smaller birds from the garden but I do leave them wood grubs in a bowl of flour when I find them.

If you want to know a bit/lot more about Cracticus tibicen and some the other extremely interesting Australian song birds may I suggest you read this...

[think positive]

i thought we had a thread abouit birds, but search bought up some very interesting topics, which totally dont relate!

so ill leave this here!

a little sad, but well done, and great to see the chinese hunter change his job

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-17/flying-for-your-life-ann-jones/7459288

[KenH]

A nice read Jo, thanks for putting that up! The birds are amazing to be able to fly those distances. Who would have thought North Korea was so important? I love the curlews when I go up north to Magnetic Island to visit my brother, the noises they make are at night are frightening!

[think positive]

No worries it's pretty amazing, I had no idea they couldn't 'land' on water to deep to stand in, fascinating