As I waved The Child off to school from our front gate, this magpie was singing the most lovely song. To my motherly ears, it sounded just like a birdy version of Happy Birthday, but that's perhaps because today The Child officially became A Teen.
We have quite a few magpies in the area, two of which have made a nest in a disused chimney in a house across the street. Once the sun is properly up, they either fly to the tops of other houses and sing or walk around the nature strips looking for worms.
This one's having a sing just after sunrise, hence the sky isn't its ususual blue blue yet.
This is the chimney they nest in, snapped just after dawn.
If you don't know what an Australian Magpie sounds like, they have the most beautiful song (hear it here.) When they're all going at it at once, it sounds like a choir singing from above.
And today that choir was definitely carrolling to the tune of Happy Birthday.
Many happy returns to your daughter, and good luck to you with the teen years! (Remembering myself as a teen, of course).
ReplyDeleteVery nice being serenaded by the local wildlife .. only aren't your magpies supposed to be rather nasty beasts? Ours are bad enough, although like the Ozzie version, they are very pretty..
They're lovely! Apart from the aggressive, kamikaze swooping they do during breeding season, which can be, er, slightly unpleasant and rather painful to say the least. Everyone loves them - until they're attacked...
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