Hello!
Note Before Reading: I am sorry for not blogging for the past 2-3 weeks. 😔😓 I either didn’t have time, forgot, or didn’t blog because I was scared by an earthquake!
Hi!!!!!! Great to see you again.
This week’s animal is the Australian Magpie. I have had lots of experiences with magpies, one of which happened today! I was reading a book outside and a magpie came so close to me, (it’s wings level with the top of the bench,) that I could sort of hear it flapping it’s wings! I’m not quite sure exactly how many magpie species there are, but I do know the names of a few including: Eurasian Magpies, Black-billed Magpies, Azure-Winged Magpies, Red Billed Blue Magpies, Taiwan Magpies, and Oriental Magpies. If you want to know more about these fascinating (and aggressive) birds, then read on!!!
AUSTRALIAN MAGPIE
Australian Magpies are usually black and white, normally with white beaks with black tips and white necks, upper backs, sides of wings, and underside of the tail. They also have dark orangish-red piercing eyes.
Magpies are actually pretty common. Australian Magpies are found wherever there are both lots of trees and and wide, open areas, like parks and playing fields. They are only not there in the thickest forests and the driest deserts.
Magpies are omnivorous. That means that they can eat both, fruit or veggies and insects or meat. They eat various things that are near or on the ground, like earthworms, millipedes, snails, spiders, scorpions, cockroaches, ants, earwigs, beetles, cicadas, moths and caterpillars and other larvae. PLEASE, do not feed magpies, because our food doesn’t give them the nutrition they need. (By the way, I, personally, find most of the magpie’s diet disgusting.🤢 Maybe a magpie doesn’t, maybe most animals or birds don’t, maybe even you don’t, but me, yuck.)
Magpies usually leave you alone, (that is, if you leave them alone,) but during breeding season, it’s a whole different story.
Breeding season lasts June to December, and it especially peaks during September, whech is when the baby magpie chicks are most weak and vulnerable. They usually breed in their own social group which they defend against predators and other magpies. The female is in charge of selecting the nesting site and incubating the eggs. (Incubating means sitting on the eggs and keeping them warm.) They are so protective of their babies, it’s ridiculous how protective they are. When you get too close to their nesting territories during the season, the magpies first give you a sort of “warning swoop”. It’s when they brush past you, so close that you can hear or feel them. If you don’t listen to that warning swoop and SCRAM, then they’ll swoop on your head and peck you, sometimes so hard that your head (or whatever part of the body they swoop on, it’s usually the face or head,) BLEEDS. It’s actually only the males that swoop, and that too only 10% of males, but there are lots of victims of the magpie’s swoop. Please never try to provoke a magpie, as I’m assuming the swoop is very painful.
Thanks for reading Kreeti’s Creature Blog! See you next time!!
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