Talk:Australian Magpie

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I visit Australia to see my family who emigrated there many years ago. My grearest joy is to hear the Magpie`s song,both in town and on the farm would it be possible to have the sounds on the web page. Simon Francis

That would be great, Sam. The only call recordings I know of are copyright. A year or so ago I thought long and hard about buying recording gear and doing it myself, but I would up spending the time and money on photography instead. And yes, the song of the magpie is a wonderful thing indeed. Tannin 22:22, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

'cept if it's 4:30 am and you're trying to get to sleep :) -- Paul 08:32, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

You can hear a recording of an Australian magpie (albeit with some car-like background) at "northamptonshirewildlife.com,uk/sgallery". Phil Donnelly203.206.234.14 20:21, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

As someone who has been attacked by those damn birds I find the contention that their noise is of exceptional beauty very POV. When I hear the noise I look for a very big stick.Avalon 06:30, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

  • Why don't you cry about it and dob it in to your mother. I've been attacked, believe me, many more times than you, and I can still recognise them as having a beautiful call. 203.173.21.69 08:32, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Seconded. I too have been swooped by Magpies (I'd guess most Australians have had that happen to them at least once), and that doesn't stop me appreciating them for the beautiful, intelligent birds they are. I always enjoy hearing them sing. Dr algorythm 14:59, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

"I'd guess most Australians have had that happen to them at least once" yeah, try once every fucken week. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.168.247.151 (talk) 07:52, August 29, 2007 (UTC)

I think the poetry by Denis Glover is misquoted - correct text is "Quardle ardle oodle ardle wardle doodle". However, as is often the case with misquotations, I like the version on this website better! ROxBo 15:06, 15 February 2007 (UTC)


Contents

[edit] Magpies

We have had a family of magpies living near our home for over 5 years. Does anyone know how long their life span is as we are very fond of them and the male is looking a little old now. Barbara

I know that they can live 7 years, there was one lived near my house that had a quite distinguishable droopy wing that still visited until I moved. Will look it up. I am a lemon 05:16, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Striped magpie

I saw a magpie with brown and white stripes on his side, perhaps 10-15 stripes in all. Could this have been an Australian hybrid? If so, he was a long way from home in Holland.

[edit] Bad Sound File

That sound file linked at the bottom of the page sounds nothing like the beautiful call of the magpie. Are there any better resources? rmccue 04:22, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Swooping

Who invented the myth that magpies don't go for the eyes? In my experience, painting eyes on the back of my helmet hasn't done anything to deter them, instead causing them to go for that particular section of my helmet.

-oh man! i agree. i've had them come at me from directly in front.. staring straight at them. i'm definately siding that it's a myth. - stevie d

maybe the point is to give them a fake set of eye to swoop at, instead of your real eyes?

Anyone ever notice that one of the pair is usually a little more wary than the other? One will readily take food off your hand, and takes no notice when you walk close by, but the other is more reticent and scuttles away a few metres when you get close.

The article says "Last swooping season, five people died from their injuries...". I cannot find anything to back this up - are Magpies really killing Australians? Martin R 125.238.105.42 03:34, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removing Photos

It seems that some photographers are determined to have "pride of place" for their own photos - even going so far as to remove the photo(s) that held that place before. I have just restored the photo in the lead paragraph which was removed by Happy Photographer, who replaced it with one of his/her own. I've moved Happy Photographer's photo futher down in the article, next to where it better illustrated the text.

While it may make sense to re-order photos to best illustrate different sections of the article, I find it very dismissive of the contributions of photographers to simply eliminate their work entirely. Especially as this swapping/eliminating of images always seems to happen in the "top spots" of the article. This may not have been the intention of Happy Photographer, but I would ask him/her, and others, to be more respectful of the existing images when choosing to add ones own to an article. KeresH 10:46, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I will be adding more text eventually to this article, so hopefully this will allow the accommodation of more photos (ideally next to corresponding text bits). cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:20, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
I do apologise for my actions - I did not intend to be malicious in any way. In my defense, the photo I replaced was taken by the same person that has the main magpie photo in this article so it was not as if I was removing his entire photo contribution to the article. Also, I thought that, due to the size of the article in proportion to the number of pictures, I should not simply add another one. Finally, in mine, the actual size of the subject that I intended to illustrate was considerably larger than that of the one I replaced - You could simply see more magpie in mine! Sorry once again. Happy Photographer 05:02, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
And I apoliogize for taking you so harshly to task. It wasn't till after I posted the above that I checked our your user page and saw that you were new to Wikipedia. As you can tell from what I wrote, unfortunately there are a few individuals at Wikipedia who tend to see this place as "all about me". Obviously Wikipedia is a collaborative project, and that kind of grand-standing just makes everyone else pissy. Anyway, I don't fault your logic 'per se', but I would again remind you that this place is as much about the people who contribute as it is about the articles. Also, it's really easy for people to get the wrong impression in a virtual environment. That's why leaving a sentence or two on the discussion page is the best way to let people know what you were thinking. Anyway, welcome aboard. And feel free to contact me if I can be of help. KeresH 08:53, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

There are way too many pics - many don't provide anything new. I've just removed one, and I will probably remove more. --Merbabu 09:06, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 20:40, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Clean-up

I've done some fairly extensive clean-up work on this article, mainly tying up grammatical loose ends, and making some sections clearer in meaning. One or two sentences here strike me as odd, though - "They may also eat their own digestive products". Reference or citation, please? Also, the section which states hand-feeding can discourage swooping seems to be a very shaky claim. It needs either a citation, or removal. Beruthiel (talk) 00:43, 21 January 2008 (UTC)