Magpie-lark
Encyclopedia
The Magpie-lark is a conspicuous Australia
n bird
of small to medium size, also known as the Mudlark in Victoria
and Western Australia
, the Murray Magpie in South Australia
, and as the Peewee in New South Wales
and Queensland
. It had been relegated to a subfamily of fantails in the family Dicruridae (drongo
s), but has been placed in a new family of Monarchidae (monarch flycatchers) since 2008.
It is a common and very widespread bird both in urban and rural areas, occupying all parts of Australia except for Tasmania
and some of the inland desert in the far north-west of Western Australia
, and appears to have adapted well to the presence of humans. It is also found in southern New Guinea
.
in 1802. Like many Australian birds, it was named for its apparent similarity to the northern hemisphere
birds familiar to European settlers. In fact, it is neither a magpie
nor a lark
and is not particularly closely related to either—though its actual relationship to other birds remains uncertain: it was traditionally placed somewhere in-between the mud nest builders and the currawong
family (both of which look rather similar) but, in the light of modern DNA
studies, is now grouped with the monarch flycatchers.
It has many common names, including Peewit, Peewee, Mudlark (in Victoria), and Murray Magpie. It was known as Yilimbirraa among the Yindjibarndi people of the central and western Pilbara.
water in arid areas—although a disaster for other species—have been a boon for bare-ground and short-grass feeders like magpies
and magpie-larks.
Group gatherings of magpie larks have been observed, with loose "flocks" comprising dozens of individuals being observed perched on vantage points. Such behaviour is common, particularly in productive agricultural areas. This behaviour may be pairing or breeding related or simply indicate a bountiful feeding area.
The Magpie-lark is aggressively territorial
, and will fearlessly defend its territory against larger species such as magpies
, ravens
, kookaburras
, and even the Wedge-tailed Eagle
. They are also known to attack people to defend their territory, such attacks occur usually within 60m of the nesting site. Native birds and their nests are protected under legislation, so if a particular bird is causing serious safety problems, contact the wildlife officer at your local Department of Environment and Conservation office, who can
assess the situation and remove the culprit if necessary. Alternatively you can try the following techniques:
Avoidance is the easiest solution. Most birds will only swoop within about 60 metres of their nest, so it is often
just a matter of taking a slight detour.
Good advice for children is to travel in a group, as birds usually prefer to target individuals.
Try and appear confident when riding through a known swooper’s territory because if it senses panic, it will be more aggressive.
Swooping birds are often dissuaded from swooping when they are being watched by the intruder, so placing
some stick-on “eyes” on the back of your helmet could deter them.
Holding a stick or umbrella over your head will often force a bird to keep its distance. Similarly, fitting a long orange traffic flag to the rear of the bike may work.
Some enterprising cyclists have even tried attaching a couple of 400mm black plastic cable ties vertically to their helmets like antennae.
is round, about 150 mm in diameter with vertical sides and is usually placed on a flat branch somewhere near water or on a horizontal beam of a telephone pole. Made of grass and plant material thickly plastered together with mud, and generously lined with grass, feather
s and fur. Breeding is opportunistic, usually from August to February in the fertile south, anytime after rain in drier areas, and multiple broods are common when conditions allow. Both parents incubate a clutch of between three and five egg
s. It is quite common for only some of the chicks to survive because sometimes the nest just isn't big enough for all of the baby birds, therefore one baby will sometimes push another out of the nest and it is most likely that the chick will not survive the fall.
Traditionally, it has been thought that the function of duet singing (not just in Magpie-larks but birds more generally and indeed in mammal
s, insect
s and frog
s) was to defend a territory or to maintain the pair-bond. More recently it has been proposed that it serves to guard against infidelity—that the male sings to attract a mate, and the female joins in to let her rivals know that this particular male is already taken. Duet singing remains fairly poorly understood as a great deal of the existing research on birdsong has been carried out in the northern hemisphere, where a fairly small number of female birds sing.
In the case of the Magpie-lark, the duet singing is now known to be cooperative: pairs sing together to defend their territory. Magpie-larks sing more vigorously in response to duet calls from other birds than they do to the call of a single rival, and more vigorously still if the callers are strangers rather than established and familiar birds from a neighbouring territory. A pair of neighbours calling from the 'wrong' place, however, (as when calls are recorded and played back by an experimenter) bring forth a powerful reaction: clearly, they know exactly who their neighbours are.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
of small to medium size, also known as the Mudlark in Victoria
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
and Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...
, the Murray Magpie in South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
, and as the Peewee in New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
and Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
. It had been relegated to a subfamily of fantails in the family Dicruridae (drongo
Drongo
The drongos are a family of small passerine birds of the Old World tropics, the Dicruridae. This family was sometimes much enlarged to include a number of largely Australasian groups, such as the Australasian fantails, monarchs and paradise flycatchers...
s), but has been placed in a new family of Monarchidae (monarch flycatchers) since 2008.
It is a common and very widespread bird both in urban and rural areas, occupying all parts of Australia except for Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
and some of the inland desert in the far north-west of Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...
, and appears to have adapted well to the presence of humans. It is also found in southern New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
.
Taxonomy
The Magpie-lark was originally described by English ornithologist John LathamJohn Latham (ornithologist)
John Latham was an English physician, naturalist and author. He was born at Eltham in Kent, and was the eldest son of John Latham, a surgeon there, and his mother was a descendant of the Sothebys, in Yorkshire....
in 1802. Like many Australian birds, it was named for its apparent similarity to the northern hemisphere
Northern Hemisphere
The Northern Hemisphere is the half of a planet that is north of its equator—the word hemisphere literally means “half sphere”. It is also that half of the celestial sphere north of the celestial equator...
birds familiar to European settlers. In fact, it is neither a magpie
Magpie
Magpies are passerine birds of the crow family, Corvidae.In Europe, "magpie" is often used by English speakers as a synonym for the European Magpie, as there are no other magpies in Europe outside Iberia...
nor a lark
Lark
Larks are passerine birds of the family Alaudidae. All species occur in the Old World, and in northern and eastern Australia; only one, the Shore Lark, has spread to North America, where it is called the Horned Lark...
and is not particularly closely related to either—though its actual relationship to other birds remains uncertain: it was traditionally placed somewhere in-between the mud nest builders and the currawong
Currawong
Currawongs are three species of medium-sized passerine birds belonging to the genus Strepera in the family Artamidae native to Australasia. These are the Grey Currawong , Pied Currawong , and Black Currawong . The common name comes from the call of the familiar Pied Currawong of eastern Australia...
family (both of which look rather similar) but, in the light of modern DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
studies, is now grouped with the monarch flycatchers.
It has many common names, including Peewit, Peewee, Mudlark (in Victoria), and Murray Magpie. It was known as Yilimbirraa among the Yindjibarndi people of the central and western Pilbara.
Description
Around 26 to 30 cm long when fully grown, or about the same size as a European Common Blackbird, and boldly pied in black and white, they are a familiar sight around the country: sitting on telephone wires either singly or in pairs, or patrolling any patch of bare ground, especially foreshores or swamps, on their well-developed legs. The sexes are similar from a distance but easy to tell apart: the female has a white throat, the male a black throat and a white "eyebrow". Juveniles and immatures of either sex have the white throat of the female and the black eyestripe of the male, and a white belly also accompanies.Behaviour
A primarily carnivorous species that eats all sorts of small creatures, the Magpie-lark can adapt to an enormous range of different habitats, requiring only some soft, bare ground for foraging, a supply of mud for making a nest, and a tree to make it in. They have benefited greatly from agriculture: both the clearing of dense forest in fertile zones and the provision of artesianArtesian aquifer
An artesian aquifer is a confined aquifer containing groundwater under positive pressure. This causes the water level in a well to rise to a point where hydrostatic equilibrium has been reached. This type of well is called an artesian well...
water in arid areas—although a disaster for other species—have been a boon for bare-ground and short-grass feeders like magpies
Australian Magpie
The Australian Magpie is a medium-sized black and white passerine bird native to Australia and southern New Guinea. A member of the Artamidae, it is closely related to the butcherbirds...
and magpie-larks.
Group gatherings of magpie larks have been observed, with loose "flocks" comprising dozens of individuals being observed perched on vantage points. Such behaviour is common, particularly in productive agricultural areas. This behaviour may be pairing or breeding related or simply indicate a bountiful feeding area.
The Magpie-lark is aggressively territorial
Territory (animal)
In ethology the term territory refers to any sociographical area that an animal of a particular species consistently defends against conspecifics...
, and will fearlessly defend its territory against larger species such as magpies
Australian Magpie
The Australian Magpie is a medium-sized black and white passerine bird native to Australia and southern New Guinea. A member of the Artamidae, it is closely related to the butcherbirds...
, ravens
Australian Raven
The Australian Raven is the largest Australian member of the genus Corvus and one of three Australian species commonly known as ravens. It is a more slender bird than the Common Raven of the Northern Hemisphere but is otherwise similar...
, kookaburras
Laughing Kookaburra
The Laughing Kookaburra, Dacelo novaeguineae, is a carnivorous bird in the kingfisher family Halcyonidae. Native to eastern Australia, it has also been introduced to parts of New Zealand, Tasmania and Western Australia. Male and female adults are similar in plumage, which is predominantly brown and...
, and even the Wedge-tailed Eagle
Wedge-tailed Eagle
The Wedge-tailed Eagle , sometimes known as the Eaglehawk in its native range, is the largest bird of prey in Australia, but it is also found in southern New Guinea. It has long, fairly broad wings, fully feathered legs, and an unmistakable wedge-shaped tail...
. They are also known to attack people to defend their territory, such attacks occur usually within 60m of the nesting site. Native birds and their nests are protected under legislation, so if a particular bird is causing serious safety problems, contact the wildlife officer at your local Department of Environment and Conservation office, who can
assess the situation and remove the culprit if necessary. Alternatively you can try the following techniques:
Avoidance is the easiest solution. Most birds will only swoop within about 60 metres of their nest, so it is often
just a matter of taking a slight detour.
Good advice for children is to travel in a group, as birds usually prefer to target individuals.
Try and appear confident when riding through a known swooper’s territory because if it senses panic, it will be more aggressive.
Swooping birds are often dissuaded from swooping when they are being watched by the intruder, so placing
some stick-on “eyes” on the back of your helmet could deter them.
Holding a stick or umbrella over your head will often force a bird to keep its distance. Similarly, fitting a long orange traffic flag to the rear of the bike may work.
Some enterprising cyclists have even tried attaching a couple of 400mm black plastic cable ties vertically to their helmets like antennae.
Breeding
Birds generally pair for life (though divorce is not unknown) and defend a territory together. The nestBird nest
A bird nest is the spot in which a bird lays and incubates its eggs and raises its young. Although the term popularly refers to a specific structure made by the bird itself—such as the grassy cup nest of the American Robin or Eurasian Blackbird, or the elaborately woven hanging nest of the...
is round, about 150 mm in diameter with vertical sides and is usually placed on a flat branch somewhere near water or on a horizontal beam of a telephone pole. Made of grass and plant material thickly plastered together with mud, and generously lined with grass, feather
Feather
Feathers are one of the epidermal growths that form the distinctive outer covering, or plumage, on birds and some non-avian theropod dinosaurs. They are considered the most complex integumentary structures found in vertebrates, and indeed a premier example of a complex evolutionary novelty. They...
s and fur. Breeding is opportunistic, usually from August to February in the fertile south, anytime after rain in drier areas, and multiple broods are common when conditions allow. Both parents incubate a clutch of between three and five egg
Egg (biology)
An egg is an organic vessel in which an embryo first begins to develop. In most birds, reptiles, insects, molluscs, fish, and monotremes, an egg is the zygote, resulting from fertilization of the ovum, which is expelled from the body and permitted to develop outside the body until the developing...
s. It is quite common for only some of the chicks to survive because sometimes the nest just isn't big enough for all of the baby birds, therefore one baby will sometimes push another out of the nest and it is most likely that the chick will not survive the fall.
Duet singing
Magpie-larks are one of the 200-odd species of bird around the world that are known to sing in duet; each partner producing about one note a second, but a half-second apart, so that humans find it difficult to tell that there are actually two birds singing, not one.Traditionally, it has been thought that the function of duet singing (not just in Magpie-larks but birds more generally and indeed in mammal
Mammal
Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...
s, insect
Insect
Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...
s and frog
Frog
Frogs are amphibians in the order Anura , formerly referred to as Salientia . Most frogs are characterized by a short body, webbed digits , protruding eyes and the absence of a tail...
s) was to defend a territory or to maintain the pair-bond. More recently it has been proposed that it serves to guard against infidelity—that the male sings to attract a mate, and the female joins in to let her rivals know that this particular male is already taken. Duet singing remains fairly poorly understood as a great deal of the existing research on birdsong has been carried out in the northern hemisphere, where a fairly small number of female birds sing.
In the case of the Magpie-lark, the duet singing is now known to be cooperative: pairs sing together to defend their territory. Magpie-larks sing more vigorously in response to duet calls from other birds than they do to the call of a single rival, and more vigorously still if the callers are strangers rather than established and familiar birds from a neighbouring territory. A pair of neighbours calling from the 'wrong' place, however, (as when calls are recorded and played back by an experimenter) bring forth a powerful reaction: clearly, they know exactly who their neighbours are.
External links
- Magpie-lark videos, photos & sounds on the Internet Bird Collection