birding-aus

Moore Magpie Mimicry

To: Birding-Aus <>
Subject: Moore Magpie Mimicry
From: John Gamblin <>
Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 18:43:31 -0800 (PST)
G'day All,

I was just wondering and await enlightment from you
all ..... but I have always thought that mimicry was
the act of fully mimicking? being allowed to live my
life with a good looking young bird that mimic's very
well, as I do, I don't class her as mimicking unless
she picks up the phone handset after giving out her
phone ringing rendition? I think it's not a fool
mimic, unless she does? Of course, if it's someone she
knows then you get a good conversation with her as
long as your well versed in some words of
"Magpieknee's" mixed with English. Shirley, we should
not cawl it mimicking when it's merely a sound copying
cawl?????

 :^D

Potters off to dish out some mixed fruit from the
blender, gee it took a long time to get that frog in
the blender off Tones. Oh by the way I now get 3 young
male magpies tap in unison on my front room window? I
think they want "Eggy" to go out and play with them,
or they are practicing hard to be a Sandy Nelson when
they get older. I just wish they were not so rough at
playing. I bet they are related to that "Eggy McGuire"
of TV fame? now I'm reel e fishing for roughies eh.

re: Sunning? everytime I have seen a magpie sunning
himself it looks like a copycat act of one of those
childs bendy necked toys? always amazes me they don't
drop of their perch or the neck falls off when sunning
themselves. The angle they achieve with the body let
alone their neck is stunning.

Eggy did once fall off ..... she was sat in the
kitchen window on a cool but sunny day and fell
backwards into the dish drainer after 20 minutes of
bendy~necking.

Lunch break over for me, so back on my head in paint
shop pro.

Ooroo all, ave a good day, JAG der Whag.
=======================================================
Claire Stevenson <>
wrote:

Hi Clive,

Your magpie was probably just sunning himself ...
they've tricked me at first too!

We had a group of 6 maggies that frequented and bred
on our property (about 7 yrs ago). One day while
enjoying some time outside, one of the males was
watching from an overhanging tree limb. After some
vocal exercise I
distinctly heard something say "hello". I looked up
expecting to find somebodies tamed cockatoo or the
like. But no body except our maggie. I dismissed what
I heard and went back to the gardening. He then
repeated
"Hello" followed by "Good boy". I was stunned! This
was the first time I had heard of a magpie talking (or
repeating our human "calls"). He stayed for a while
all the time calling, where I heard Grey Butcherbird,
Red Wattlebird, Carnaby's Black Cockatoo (this was one
of his favourites), Laughing Kookaburra, car alarm,
barking and growling dogs, as well as "hello", "hello
boy" and "good boy". I came to the conclusion that
someone in the area had been feeding him or that he
may of been a rehabilitated bird. In the years that
followed we heard the same repertoire from other birds
in the group.

Since then I've heard many stories of "talking"
magpies and have heard some amazing mimicry from other
birds including Grey Butcherbirds and Silvereye.

CS

P.S Thanks to Bob & Victor for the list of Online
Birding Sites! It will definately come in handy ...

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