What Is It

What does it look like?

Appearance

• Colour: black and white, with the pattern varying across its range. The back of its neck, upper tail and shoulders (on its wings) are white in males and grey in females, and (across most of Australia) the rest of its body is black. In south-eastern, central and south-western Australia, including Tasmania, its back and rump are entirely white. Its eye is red-brown. Young birds are usually grey rather than black and have dark eyes.
• One toe faces backwards and three face forwards. It has a square-tipped tail.
• Size: 36 – 44 cm long (from head to tail), with an average wing span of 76 cm.

What to observe?

• We expect birds to start breeding and singing earlier in the year as a result of climate change warming the Earth. They may also start appearing in new areas as warmer temperatures enable them to live in environments that were previously too cold for them.

Help scientists answer the question: "How are our animals, plants and ecosystems responding to climate change?" by making the following simple observations.

Video

This video of two magpies nesting in open forest of country town garden was taken in Somers, Victoria, on 12 September 2009. They were collecting food and feeding young ones in nest built high in old pine tree.  There were two chicks in the nest. The male magpie spent time finding food to feed the chicks. The female spend time in and around the nest.

When

When to look for the Australian Magpie

• From June to December
• Breeding time depends on the region: from June to September in northern Australia, from August to October in southern states, and even later in cooler regions.
• Eggs hatch three weeks after being laid
• Young birds leave the nest when they are four weeks old.

Note: ClimateWatch is looking for any changes in the timing of these events, so remember to keep a lookout from June in northern Australia and from August in southern Australia! 

Behaviour

• Call: a carolling, flute-like song, often calling together. 
• Diet: small insects and animals that live on, or just under, the surface of the ground, including grasshoppers, scarab beetles, insect larvae, frogs and small lizards. During the day it walks along jabbing its beak into the ground, searching for food. It swallows small insects whole, and uses its beak to break up larger food items before eating them.
• Flight: swift, strong and direct, sometimes in flocks of several hundred birds.
• Breeding: it is extremely territorial during the four to six weeks of the breeding season. The female usually selects a nest site, which is either high up a tree, on a power pole or on the roof of a building. The nest is a rough basket of sticks, twigs, plant stems and occasionally wire, lined with softer materials such as wool, hair, grass, feathers and shredded bark. The female lays between one and six eggs, which are either blue or green with brown blotching, and she sits on them for 20 days. She then feeds her young until they are about four weeks old, when they are ready to fly and leave the nest.

Observations to record

• Courting/mating
• Calling
• Feeding
• Nesting (and, if possible: bird in nest, bird on eggs, bird with chicks, bird feeding begging chicks).

Please include the date of your observation, the location, how many birds you saw, and the environment you were in.

Where

 

Where is it found?

• Throughout Australia, wherever there are trees next to open areas, including natural habitat, farming areas, country towns, suburbs, cities, parks, gardens, bushland areas, sporting ovals and golf courses.
• Not in very dense forests and arid deserts.

Note: ClimateWatch is looking for any changes in their known ranges, so remember to keep a lookout anywhere in Australia!

Where to look

• The nests are found in the outer branches of trees and sometimes on power poles and the roofs of buildings, generally next to open space.

Note: ClimateWatch is looking for any changes in the timing of these events, so remember to keep a lookout from June in northern Australia and from August in southern Australia! 

Sightings

References

Want to know more? 

•  Higgins PJ, Peter JM & Cowling SJ (eds) 2006. Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds, Vol. 7, Part A. Oxford University Press, Melbourne.
• Morcombe M 2000. Field Guide to Australian Birds. Steve Parish Publishing Pty Ltd, Archerfield, Qld. • Pizzey G & Knight F 1997. Field Guide to the Birds of Australia. Angus and Robertson, Sydney.
• Schodde R & Tidemann SC (eds) 1990. Reader's Digest Complete Book of Australian Birds (2nd Edition). Reader's Digest (Australia) Pty Ltd, Sydney.

References

• Australian Museum: http://australianmuseum.net.au/Australian-Magpie
• Birds in Backyards: http://www.birdsinbackyards.net/finder/display.cfm?id=24
• NSW Government – Department of Environment and Climate Change: http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/animals/TheAustralianMagpie.htm
• SA Government - Department for Environment and Heritage: http://www.environment.sa.gov.au/biodiversity/pdfs/aus_magpie_fact_sheet.pdf
• Backyard Birdwatch: http://www2.abc.net.au/science/birds/asp/query.asp?Action=Display&id=69
• Featherdale Wildlife Park: http://www.featherdale.com.au/featherdale/featherdale.ns4/Animals/Australian+Magpie
• Both C, Artemyev AV, Blaauw B, Cowie RJ, Dekhuijzen AJ, Eeva T, Enemar A, Gustafsson L, Ivankina EV, Jarvinen A, Metcalfe NB, Nyholm NEI, Potti J, Ravussin P, Sanz JJ, Silverin B, Slater FM, Sokolov LV, Torok J, Winkel W, Wright J, Zang H, and Visser ME 2004. Large-scale geographical variation confirms that climate change causes birds to lay earlier. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B 271: 1657–1662.
• Hughes, L 2003. Climate change and Australia: Trends, projections and impacts. Austral Ecology 28: 423–443
• Walther G, Post E, Convey P, Menzel A, Parmesan C, Beebee TJC, Fromentin J, Hoegh-Guldberg O, and Bairlein F 2002. Ecological responses to recent climate change. Nature 416: 389–395.