Originally published at: These Australian Magpies sound like an experimental noise music band | Boing Boing
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That lone bird burbling to itself is so cute.
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The Strine Magpies’ song is indeed a weird and wonderful thing.
I pointed out to mom how metallic a neighborhood pheasant sounded, and she told me I’m nuts. My BF is a bassist who has also done studio recording, radio work, and ran live sound for ages. He said mom was nuts when he heard one near here, that the bird sounded V metallic. 
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My head, banging.
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They’re infamous for maniacally swooping at innocent passerbys in defense of their nests.
At the same time, they’re very playful and easily become tame–those are just backyard birbs the “whisperer” has befriended.
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Broken /Wheel WA is a pretty cool band and Federation Door Unlocker. It’s important that when fed they don’t respond by decorating the -inside- of the door or eating the dash. Considerably floofier looking than a starling, if less glittersome.
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after this, everyone in the car lost their eyes
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On a quiet weekend when the traffic doesn’t start until late, this is the sound I wake up to. it’s enough to forgive them for their swoopy-boi antics, which are at least only for a few months of the year.
Although if you ask me at the beginning of next year’s swooping season, I might have a different view. 
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Oh man, the magpies we have in Alaska are so loud and awful sounding.
Magpie: The world’s noisiest wild bird? - YouTube
That’s what we wake up to in the summer.
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For anyone not familiar with Australia - these guys are EVERYWHERE and do indeed warble just like this
They’re also capable of some basic mimicry - particularly they’re known to bark like dogs, possibly to scare aware predators (quick google will find many examples)
For the most part they’re curious and clever, and can be friendly (I know a few old folk who feed them bits of sausage and have swarms of regular visitors as a result, though they probably shouldn’t do it). They sometimes get a bad rap for swooping heads and eyes during mating season, but otherwise are cool.
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that’s worse than a scrub. they can be so loud, and are super protective of anyone getting within a square 100km* or so of their nest.
* i might be underestimating. just, earth. anywhere on earth. if you’re there, they hate you
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Kookies are mighty loud, too…
…but not all the time.
Emus are so effing weird, and they make some weird noises
Janet and Glenn are the children of Karen and Stanley. Amanda is hoping for obvs reasons that they’ll take after their father.
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Are you sure those were real birds and not some of those fake Government Drone Birds we hear about in the “news”. 
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Which ones? All of 'em?
laughs in Kookaburra
I get the occasional visit from a surveillance drone. They don’t even try to hide it.
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I love kingfishers and was pissed at myself for not realizing that kookies are kingfishers! TBF, it’s very easy to get distracted by that voice, that unquestionably Strine voice we hear in so damn many old “African Jungle” movie scenes!
ETA: I saw a kingfisher while on a Lake County, Michigan creekside trail, in the woodsy northwest lower peninsula. S/he was perched above the water, a flash of Kingfisher Blue on a cute squatty body, that long beak, and I knew whom I was seeing before my brain had even put it all together.
I was raised by a passionate birder, after all.
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Kenoath!
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