"I listened to the bird for a while and then started recording to show my five- and three-year-old when they got home." Gisela Kaplan, an

What sound does a magpie make? That depends on what's within swooping range

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2024-03-29 01:00:06

"I listened to the bird for a while and then started recording to show my five- and three-year-old when they got home."

Gisela Kaplan, an animal behaviour professor at the University of New England, has studied the songs of magpies for more than 20 years.

Lyrebirds might be more famous for mimicking sounds than magpies — as you can hear in the video below from Taronga Zoo, they're very good at human baby cries:

But in her book, Australian Magpie: Biology and Behaviour of an Unusual Songbird, Professor Kaplan points out that magpies are better at it.

"In terms of tempo, rhythm, amplitude or modulation, magpies were more accurate in their renditions of mimicked sounds than lyrebirds," she says.

"Magpies do not string their mimicked sequence along a fixed sequence as lyrebirds do, but intersperse their own song with snippets in any manner possible."

"There's even a kookaburra in [the video] and you probably wouldn’t notice because they’re part of the soundscape."