Steve
From: Canberrabirds <>
On Behalf Of David McDonald (Personal)
Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2023 6:24 PM
To: Canberrabirds list <>
Subject: [Canberrabirds] Pest species, 1870s
Samuel Shumack came to Canberra with his family at the age of six, in 1856. He farmed at Weetangerra until 1915 when his property was resumed by the Commonwealth. He then moved
to the Hunter Valley, and died in 1940. Here is a quotation from a book, compiled from his voluminous writings by his descendants: Shumack, S 1967,
An autobiography, or, Tales and legends of Canberra pioneers, Australian National University Press, Canberra:
Towards the close of the seventh decade [of the 1800s] many pests made their appearance and began to annoy the farmers on the Canberra plain. The Native Companion caused great destruction, and the havoc wrought by the opossum on grain and fruit was incredible
… The Native Companion was also a bad pest and was hard to shoot as the feathers were believed to be shot-proof except from behind. Tom Williams fired a rifle shot into a mob of about eighty on his father’s paddock at the Canberra post office and succeeded
in killing only one. The blue jay, blue magpie, leather head, the white cockatoo and about a dozen of the parrot family were also pests to the bush orchardists. On one occasion I shot more than 500, but they came on in greater numbers than before. The same
thing took place at Duntroon. Mr E C Campbell shop more than eighty before breakfast, Andy declared that when he went out at 10 a.m. twenty in addition to everyone shot had come to the funeral of their mates. He discontinued shooting and employed men to cover
the trees with wire netting and thus saved the late cherry and apricots crops (p. 152).
Bird names: Native Companion: Brolga; blue jay: Black-faced Cuckooshrike; leather head: Noisy Friarbird. But what is a blue magpie? Trove has a number of mentions of a type of fancy
pigeon by this name, and of the various Blue Magpie species of the northern hemisphere. And there is this report, referring specially to Australian ‘magpies’. After discussing the black-backed and white-backed races, the author (probably a youngster) wrote:
There Is, however, the other species of magpie, which is entirely different. I refer to the blue magpie. This bird, which is smaller than the others, is a dark blue, with yellow eyes, quite different from the black eye of the others. The note differs slightly,
and the egg Is white, with pink blotches.
Source: "Magpies" The Sun News-Pictorial (Melbourne, Vic.) 3 August 1926: S2 (Supplement to "Sun News-Pictorial.").
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article274811759.
Fraser & Gray don’t mention blue magpies, nor does the Australian National Dictionary 2e.
Any suggestions as to the identity of Canberra’s blue magpies, a farmers’ pest in the 1870s?
David
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David McDonald
1004 Norton Road, Wamboin NSW 2620, Australia
Mobile: 0416 231 890 | Tel: (02) 6238 3706
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