Magpie-lark: Difference between revisions

| status_system = IUCN3.1

| status_ref = <ref name="iucn status 19 November 2021">{{cite iucn |author=BirdLife International |date=2018 |title=''Grallina cyanoleuca'' |volume=2018 |page=e.T22707425A131945945 |doi=10.2305/IUCN.UK.2018-2.RLTS.T22707425A131945945.en |access-date=19 November 2021}}</ref>

| genus = Grallina

| species = cyanoleuca

 

==Taxonomy and systematics==

 

Latham gave the species the common names of blue and white crow and pied grackle, based on the scientific names.<ref name=latham25/><ref name=latham29/> [[John Gould]] likewise called it the pied grallina in 1848, though he noted that it was called magpie-lark by the early settlers.<ref>{{cite book | last=Gould | first=John | author-link=John Gould | year=1848 | title=The birds of Australia | volume=2 | place=London | publisher=Self-published | at=Plate 54 | url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/48200705 }}</ref> Gould noted similarities to the British pied wag-tail, and its flight to that of the European common pewit.<ref name="LondonNews1863">{{cite news |title=The magpie-larks of Australia at the Zoological Society's gardens, Regent's Park |url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grallina_picata_-_1863_-_Print_-_Iconographia_Zoologica_-_Special_Collections_University_of_Amsterdam_-_UBA01_IZ16300129.tif |work=The Illustrated London News |date=1863 |page=225 |quote= .. . settlers, whose verandahs and housetops it constantly visits, running along the latter like the [[Pied Wagtail|pied wagtail]] of our own island. In fact, the two birds, except in size, are very similar. The flight of the grallina, is very peculiar, and unlike that of any other Australian bird. It much resembles that of the common pewit of Europe ''[possibly refers to [[Northern lapwing]]?]'', and is performed with the same heavy, flapping motion of the wings. Still, the flight of the two birds differ materially during their passage through the air, the grallina passing noiselessly, and generally in a straight line, while the pewit makes sudden turns and dips … }}</ref> Alternate names for the magpie-lark include the mudlark (more common in southeastern Australia<ref name=bryant11>{{cite thesis | url=https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/8744 | author=Bryant, Pauline |title=Regional variation in the lexicon of Australian English |year=2011}}</ref>) or pugwall (pug "clay"), from its nest, and peewee (more common in northeastern Australia<ref name=bryant11/>), peewit, from its call.<ref name=fraser13/> Unlike many species in southwestern Australia, the magpie-lark was given names by the local indigenous people that were [[onomatopoeic]] (sounding like the calls they make). Names recorded include ''byoolkolyedi'' (Perth and lowlands), ''dilabot'' (mountains and interior), and ''koolyibarak''.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Abbott | first=Ian | title=Aboriginal names of bird species in south-west Western Australia, with suggestions for their adoption into common usage |year= 2009 |journal= Conservation Science Western Australia Journal |volume= 7 |issue=2 |pages=213–78 [265–66] |url=http://www.dpaw.wa.gov.au/images/documents/about/science/cswa/articles/14.pdf}}</ref> Indigenous people in the Sydney region called it ''birrarik''.<ref>{{cite book|author=Troy, Jakelin|year=1993|title=The Sydney Language|publisher=Self-published| location=Canberra|isbn=0-646-11015-2| url=http://www.williamdawes.org/docs/troy_sydney_language_publication.pdf}} p. 52 of 93. Troy gives ''birrarik'' as the reference form in his regularised orthography, based on "birrerik" of [[R. H. Mathews]] (1903).</ref>

 

==Distribution and habitat==

 

==Behaviour and ecology==

Birds generally pair for life (though divorce is not unknown) and defend a territory together. The [[bird nest|nest]] is round, about 150&nbsp;mm in diameter with vertical sides and is usually placed on a flat branch somewhere near water or on a horizontal beam of a telephone pole. It is made of grass and plant material thickly plastered together with mud, and generously lined with grass, feathers and fur. Breeding is opportunistic, usually from August to February in the fertile south, anytime after rain in drier areas, and multiple broods are common when conditions allow. Both parents incubate a clutch of between three and five eggs. Incubation of eggs takes up to eighteen days, and the young birds fledge about three weeks after hatching. It is quite common for only some of the chicks to survive because sometimes the nest is not big enough for all of the baby birds, therefore one baby will sometimes push another out of the nest and it is most likely that the chick will not survive the fall.

 

 

===Duet singing===

Magpie-larks are one of the 200-odd species of bird around the world that are known to sing in duet; each partner producing about one note a second, but a half-second apart, so that humans find it difficult to tell that there are actually two birds singing, not one.

 

 

 

==Gallery==

<gallery>

File:Australian Magpie-Lark chicks.jpg|Two chicks in a mud nest

</gallery>