http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDkm1L2eCmw
I don't know if this link has worked, but I found this on the net, after much looking to identify this bird that i hear sometimes, it is such a beautiful sound. It seems so different to the butcher bird call that I normally hear or that is on the BBY list.
I love listening to the butcherbirds, personally i think the Pied Butcherbird has the most beautiful song of all Australian birds. The Grey butcherbird has quite a wide range of vocalisations so I'm not surprised that it took you a while to find a close match.
A good resource for bird calls is http://www.xeno-canto.org
LM
Wonderful call. Back in the day when I was strolling in The Warrumbungles I heard a Pied Butcherbird calling the theme tune to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. How magnificent & appropriate it was!
That's a quite an amazing reference Snail, thank you. So it is definitely a pied butcherbird, not a grey? That makes more sense to me, there is a mistake on the youtube recording.
That must have been extraordinary Woko!
Heard another today, just one clear bell like note. It is beautiful, (my favourite is also the plain old warble of the magpie in the morning).
Elizabeth
elizabeth
No, the one in your youtube link is a Grey. Sorry to confuse you with my Pied Butcherbird comment.
LM
I haven't heard a Pied Butcherbird sing in real life, but I know they have a beautiful, melodios call.
As Elizabeth said, magpies also have a lovely early morning warble. I love when they sing around 6 to 7 o'clock in the morning, it reminds me of the bush and some holidays places I've stayed at. :)
M.M.
Given the nature of the Pied Butcherbird I heard it seems feasible that Pied Butcherbirds are great mimics - unless the call I heard was a complete fluke.
Thanks for the clarification, about the pied and greybutcher birds, the greybutchers have very distinctly different calls in that case.
I have heard a bird that is so effective a mimic here that i often think its the fire alarm or the ambulance. Sometimes it goes on all day long! Would it come from protective behaviour? perhaps trying to avoid being known by predators?
I agree about magpies, the sound seems to be so evocative of the bush and summer.
Elizabeth
elizabeth