Shorty, Alison etc
Gisela Kaplan’s excellent
Australian Magpie, biology & Behaviour … has a good section on their mimicry. They only imitate sounds that belong to their own territory.. .
Sz
From: Alison [
Sent: Friday, 12 January 2018 6:33 PM
To:
Subject: RE: [canberrabirds] Magpie doing mimicry
Hi Shorty,
I bought a book on magpies years ago. The book said that magpies do imitate neighbourhood noises but only after they have established their territory. I had
one magpie near me that used to imitate a car alarm. Sadly they were ousted by another family group some time ago.
Alison
From: shorty
Sent: Friday, 12 January 2018 2:46 PM
To:
Subject: [canberrabirds] Magpie doing mimicry
The other day i noticed one of my resident Magpies doing mimicry and it did a wonderful job of a Yellow-tailed Black-cockatoo.
Yesterday i managed a video of it singing. There is noise from the wind and some very loud Aus Ravens in the tree above but all the calls apart from the Ravens and Sparrows are from the Magpie.
