The magpie wasn’t slow in coming forward, as the expression goes. It tapped on the window of a friend’s home, demanding to be fed.
I was in magpie mode on a trip to Launceston. The species might be common across both farm and suburb in Tasmania but they are absent from my neighbourhood in Hobart.
Magpies like open, drier country and the wet forests towering over my home in the Waterworks Valley are clearly not to their liking.
Not so the bucolic Tamar Valley north of Launceston where a family of magpies make a happy home in the friend’s garden. Growing up in the country, my friend loves magpies and so he feeds his resident ones in the morning and evening. It’s quite a sight to see the magpies gathering to await his return from the gym each morning. They recognise his car, and recognise his face, so excitement builds as he enters his drive and steps from his vehicle.
The magpies are given a daily treat of cheese before flying away, and singing their host’s praises from blue gums beyond his property, the gums framing a magnificent view of the Tamar estuary far down below.
Watching the boldest of the magpies tapping on the window in preparation for the evening feed, I was told there had been seven in the family but these had dwindled to just the parents and two fully-grown juveniles. One of these lacked the boldness of the others, and would not come to the balcony to take food. It preferred instead to be fed by its parents while perched in a bush.
My friend couldn’t explain the demise of the three juveniles but suspected a bird of prey, even the wedge-tailed eagles that often pass overhead, had been the culprit. Or feral cats increasingly seen prowling the garden.
Magpies have been very much in focus for me this autumn even if I don’t see them on a daily basis, as I have said.
I came across in an interview given by British comedian Bill Bailey – coincidently while he was in Tasmania some time back – in which he revealed he was a keen birdwatcher. When asked what was his favourite Australian bird, he named the magpie.
“There’s all these birds you never see anywhere else. They’re probably so commonplace to you and you’re thinking, ‘Why are you interested in a magpie?’ but to me that’s the sound of Australia; the fluting call of a magpie.”
Bailey was surprised to hear that magpies on the mainland, but not in Tasmania, have an aggressive streak, bombarding people near their nests.
Magpies, though, show respect to people who feed them, as my friend attests.
And research into another intelligent bird species, the raven, has established they really can identify individual humans. The Tamar Valley magpies have certainly learned to separate friend from foe.