Australian magpie facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Australian magpie |
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| G. tibicen hypoleuca, Tasmania | |
| Conservation status | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Genus: |
Gymnorhina
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| Species: |
tibicen
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| Subspecies | |
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9, see text |
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| Natural range | |
| Synonyms | |
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Cracticus tibicen |
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The Australian magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen) is a black and white passerine bird native to Australia, New Zealand and southern New Guinea.
Contents
Name
The Australian magpie was first described in the scientific literature by English ornithologist John Latham in 1801.
An early recorded vernacular name is piping poller, written on a painting by Thomas Watling, one of a group known collectively as the Port Jackson Painter, sometime between 1788 and 1792. Other names used include piping crow-shrike, piping shrike, piper, maggie, flute-bird and organ-bird. The term bell-magpie was proposed to help distinguish it from the European magpie but failed to gain wide acceptance.
The bird was named for its similarity in colouration to the European magpie; it was a common practice for early settlers to name plants and animals after European counterparts. However, the two species are not closely ralated. In fact, the closest relative on the Australian magpie is the black butcherbird.
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G. tibicen terraereginae, Queensland
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G. tibicen tyrannica on the southern Victorian coast
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G. tibicen tibicen in Sydney
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Male (left) and female (right) Tasmanian magpies
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Male of ssp. tyrannica, showing prominent white back
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Western magpie female. The plumage at the nape is a starker white in males
Description
The adult Australian magpie is a fairly robust bird. It is from 37 to 43 cm (14.5 to 17 in) in length, with black and white plumage, gold brown eyes and a solid wedge-shaped bluish-white and black bill. The male and female are similar in appearance, but can be distinguished by differences in back markings. The male has pure white feathers on the back of the head and the female has white blending to grey feathers on the back of the head. The Australian magpie has long legs, so it walks rather than waddles or hops and spends much time on the ground.
Mature magpies have dull red eyes. Immature birds have dark brownish eyes until around two years of age.
Distribution and habitat
The Australian magpie is found in the Trans-Fly region of southern New Guinea, between the Oriomo River and Muli Strait, and across most of Australia, bar the tip of Cape York, the Gibson and Great Sandy Deserts, and the southwest of Tasmania.
The Australian magpie prefers open areas such as grassland, fields and residential areas such as parks, gardens, golf courses, and streets, with scattered trees or forest nearby. Birds nest and shelter in trees but forage mainly on the ground in these open areas.
Behaviour
The Australian magpie is almost exclusively diurnal, although it may call into the night.
It is generally sedentary and territorial. The species lives in groups occupying a territory, or in flocks or fringe groups. It has adapted well to human habitation and is a familiar bird of parks, gardens and farmland in Australia and New Guinea.
Vocalization
The Australian magpie is one of Australia's most accomplished songbirds. It has a wide variety of calls, many of which are complex.
When alone, a magpie may make a quiet musical warbling; these complex melodious warbles or subsongs are pitched at 2–4 KHz and do not carry for long distances. These songs can last up to 70 minutes and are more frequent after the end of the breeding season. Pairs of magpies often take up a loud musical calling known as carolling to advertise or defend their territory. Birds will adopt a specific posture by tilting their heads back, expanding their chests, and moving their wings backwards. A group of magpies will sing a short repetitive version of carolling just before dawn (dawn song), and at twilight after sundown (dusk song), in winter and spring.
Magpies use beak-clapping to warn other species of birds. They employ several high pitched (8–10 kHz) alarm or rallying calls when intruders or threats are spotted. Distinct calls have been recorded for the approach of eagles and monitor lizards.
Pitch may vary as much as four octaves. The bird can mimic over 35 species of native and introduced bird species, as well as dogs and horses. Magpies have even been noted to mimic human speech. The bird has been known to mimic environmental sounds as well, including the noises made by emergency vehicles during the New South Wales wildfire state of emergency for Australian bushfire.
Its complex, musical, warbling call is one of the most familiar Australian bird sounds. In Denis Glover's poem "The Magpies", the mature magpie's call is described as quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle, one of the most famous lines in New Zealand poetry, and as waddle giggle gargle paddle poodle, in the children's book Waddle Giggle Gargle by Pamela Allen.
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Magpie in an aggressive display and call
Breeding
The reported age of first breeding has varied according to area, but the average is between the ages of three and five years.
Magpies have a long breeding season which varies in different parts of the country. In northern parts of Australia they will breed between June and September, but not start until August or September in cooler regions, and may continue until January in some alpine areas.
The nest is a bowl-shaped structure made of sticks and lined with softer material such as grass and bark. Near human habitation, synthetic material may be used. Nests are built exclusively by females and generally placed high up in a tree fork. The trees used are most commonly eucalypts, although they can nest in pines, Crataegus, and elms. The channel-billed cuckoo (Scythrops novaehollandiae) is a notable brood parasite in eastern Australia; magpies will raise cuckoo young, which eventually outcompete the magpie nestlings.
The Australian magpie produces a clutch of two to five light blue or greenish eggs, which are oval in shape and about 30 by 40 mm (1.2 by 1.6 in). Chicks are born pink, naked, and blind with large feet, a short broad beak and a bright red throat. Their eyes are fully open at around 10 days. Chicks develop fine downy feathers on their head, back and wings in the first week, and pinfeathers in the second week. The black and white colouration is noticeable from an early stage. Nestlings are usually fed exclusively by the female, though the male magpie will feed his partner.
Individual males do feed nestlings and fledglings, to varying degrees. The Australian magpie is known to engage in cooperative breeding, and helper birds will assist in feeding and raising young. This does vary from region to region, and with the size of the group.
Juvenile magpies begin foraging on their own three weeks after leaving the nest, and mostly feeding themselves by six months old. Some birds continue begging for food until eight or nine months of age, but are usually ignored. Birds reach adult size by their first year. Many leave at around a year old, but the age of departure may range from eight months to four years.
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Nest in a banksia tree
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Western magpie female (note scalloped back) collecting nesting material
Diet
It is omnivorous. The bird's diet is mostly made up of invertebrates, such as earthworms, millipedes, snails, spiders and scorpions as well as a wide variety of insects—cockroaches, ants, earwigs, beetles, cicadas, moths and caterpillars and other larvae. Insects, including large adult grasshoppers, may be seized mid-flight. Skinks, frogs, mice and other small animals as well as grain, tubers, figs and walnuts have also been noted as components of their diet. This species is commonly fed by households around the country.
Birds use their bills to probe into the earth or otherwise overturn debris in search of food. Smaller prey are swallowed whole, although magpies rub off the stingers of bees and wasps and irritating hairs of caterpillars before swallowing.
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A juvenile begs for food from its father
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With a cicada at Church Point.
_with_Cicada_(Church_Point,_NSW,_2017-12-27).png)
Threats and predators
Natural predators of magpies include various species of monitor lizard and the barking owl. Birds are often killed on roads or electrocuted by powerlines, or poisoned after killing and eating house sparrows or mice, rats or rabbits targeted with baiting. The Australian raven may take nestlings left unattended.
Invasive species
Over 1000 Australian magpies were introduced into New Zealand from 1864 to 1874, but have subsequently been accused of displacing native birds and are now treated as a pest species. They are thought to affect native New Zealand bird populations such as the tūī and kererū, sometimes raiding nests for eggs and nestlings. Introductions also occurred in the Solomon Islands and Fiji, where the birds are not considered an invasive species.
Swooping
Magpies live in urban areas all over Australia, and have become accustomed to people. However, a small percentage (less than 9%) of birds may become highly aggressive to people during breeding season. Almost all attacking birds (around 99%) are male, and they are generally known to attack pedestrians at around 50 m (160 ft) from their nest, and cyclists at around 100 m (330 ft).
Anecdotal evidence suggests that if a magpie sees a human trying to rescue a chick that has fallen from its nest, the bird will view this help as predation, and will become more aggressive to humans from then on.
Magpie attacks occur in most parts of Australia, though Tasmanian magpies are much less aggressive than their mainland counterparts. Magpie attacks can cause injuries, typically wounds to the head. Being unexpectedly swooped while cycling can result in loss of control of the bicycle, which may cause injury or even fatal accidents.
More rarely, a bird may dive-bomb and strike the intruder's (usually a cyclist's) head with its chest. A magpie may rarely attack by landing on the ground in front of a person and lurching up and landing on the victim's chest and pecking at the face and eyes.
To avoid swooping, it is better not to walk near the nest. Otherwise, an umbrella, a helmet and sunglasses can protect againt injury. Cyclists can deter attack by attaching a long pole with a flag to a bike, and the use of cable ties on helmets has become common and appears to be effective.
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A territorial magpie swoops a cyclist.
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A magpie defending its territory from a brown goshawk
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Interesting facts about the Australian magpie
- The species is most closely related to the black butcherbird (Melloria quoyi). It is not closely related to the European magpie, which is a corvid.
- Its 'official' name, 'Coracias tibicen', is derived from the Latin tibicen "flute-player" or "piper" in reference to the bird's melodious call.
- There are currently thought to be nine subspecies of the Australian magpie.
- In spring (and occasionally in autumn) a small minority of breeding magpies (almost always males) become aggressive, swooping and attacking those who approach their nests.
- Research has shown that magpies can recognise at least 100 different people, and may be less likely to swoop individuals they have befriended.
- Australian magpies generally live to around 25 years of age, though ages of up to 30 years have been recorded.
- The Australian magpie is the mascot of several Australian and New Zealand sporting teams, including the Collingwood Magpies, the Western Suburbs Magpies, Port Adelaide Magpies and, in New Zealand, the Hawke's Bay Magpies.
- Magpies are a protected native species in Australia, so it is illegal to kill or harm them.
See also
In Spanish: Verdugo flautista para niños
