do you know what kind of bird this is? I'm thinking it's a pied butcherbird or a grey one. thanks so much for helping me^^
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Hi Eileen. Your ibrd is an Australian Magpie.
Cheers, Owen.
I thought it was a different species because there was another magpie which looks a bit different from the one in the photo. Thanks Owen.
Males & females are different, Eileen. And the young are rather like the females. Check out a good field guide & you'll see what I mean.
Hi Eileen,
Why it looks different than you expect is because it is a juvenile magpie.
As with many (if not most) birds, the young look quite different to mature birds. As it matures, this bird will get the regular, much blacker feathers of an adult magpie. You can often notice juvenile birds by their behaviour as well - perhaps much noisier than the adults, or you can see them learning from the adults' behaviour.
Around my place we have lots of Pied Butcherbirds, and the feathers of juveniles start off pale brown and go black usually after 1 year or so. They also start to practice their full songs around the same time. I find it quite beautiful and funny to listen to a juvenile bird as it practices singing (in my interpretation) "just because it can". Their voice sometimes 'breaks' or they get the song 'wrong', which is quite lovely.
Cheers
Cheers
Tim
Brisbane
thanks so much, Woko and Timmo!^^ that really helped^^
Ha hah Timmo..... that is so true about the juveniles.... I have a juv Green Catbird learning to sing ( if you can call their howl singing) and it is funny at times, but I think he is getting the hang of it lately....just in time for the dawn chorus at 4am this summer LOL
Sunshine Coast Queensland