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A few days ago, somebody (Alan Morris, I think)
asked what happened concerning the reports of a European Magpie in the
upper Hunter valley from a while ago. I didn't notice any responses, so
I'll fill in a bit on the story as I know it and then add some news from
today.
After the reports of a strange bird at a power
station (Liddell power station, I believe it was) in the upper Hunter, Phil
Hansboro and Dion Hobcroft went there to look for it. The bird was not
found, but they were shown photographs of a definite European Magpie taken at a
bird feeder at the power station. The bird was reported to have been there
since about the beginning of this year, but it had disappeared from a week or
two before their visit. This coincided with the gentleman who maintained the
food supply in the feeder going on leave. He's since back, and putting out
birdseed, but the European Magpie has not come back to the feeder. Phil
Hansboro has told me that he has copies of the photos.
Late last year, there were some stories of a
European Magpie having been seen at the Hunter Region Botanic Gardens, near
Raymond Terrace. These sightings were unable to be confirmed - by the time
we heard about it, the bird was no longer being seen there. The
disappearance from the Botanic Gardens seems to approximately coincide (slight
lag) with the appearance further up the Hunter valley at Liddell power
station.
The trail had gone cold after the bird disappeared
from Liddell. However, I received a report just yesterday that somebody
had seen what they thought to be a European Magpie at Carrington, which is an
inner suburb of Newcastle. I spoke this afternoon with the guy who had
seen it. He is reasonably knowledgeable about birds and gave me a
fairly credible description. The bird was there all day last Friday, but
he hasn't seen it since then.
I think it's a >99% probability that there was a
European Magpie in Newcastle last Friday, and which therefore could appear
somewhere within the Newcastle/Sydney region at any time (would it be a
legitimate tick for those in the Twitchathon??).
How did it get here? Possibly off a ship
coming in to Newcastle Harbour - I've been told that sailors consider it to
be a good luck bird and sometimes have it as a shipboard pet. I don't
know if this is correct or not.
Alan Stuart
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