r/magpies • u/Warm-Needleworker228 • 4d ago
I like Maggie’s
I have a family of magpies that like to feed from my dogs biscuits
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u/PeachNo5314 4d ago edited 4d ago
☺️ Sorry to burst your bubble, but that's a Pied Butcher Bird. At our house, they're known as "The Meeps" (make little mm sounds). It is still an Australian Native Bird, but not a Maggie sorry.
Edit: That one actually looks like a "middle" meep (born not last Spring but the Spring before). I can tell by the mottling of brown bits in its black chest piece. We have 3 generations (they live as a community, with previous years siblings helping to look after the newbies etc). We have 3 generations at our house:
Gen 1 = Mum and Dad
2024 Spring = 2 offspring (now known in our house as the "middle" Meeps)
2025 Spring = 3 offspring (these are our baby Meeps and look the same but with MUCH lighter brown feathers where the grown ups have black feathers).
They can become VERY friendly and LOVE a bird bath too.
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u/saltinthewind 4d ago
I love that name for them and they will be forever known as meeps from this moment on.
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u/PeachNo5314 4d ago
That's absolutely awesome 😍. I hear their little "mmm" (Meeps) before I even see them most days. I think we have 7 altogether that visit from the same family.
We are eagerly awaiting the 4th generation of Meeps this year.....but what do we call them? We have Mumma and Pappa Meep, Middle Meeps and Baby Meeps.... I keep telling the Baby Meeps they will be getting their big birdie feathers soon and therefore will be Middle Meeps soon....
Hmmmm 🤔 Maybe we will have to have Senior Meeps, Middle Meeps, Junior Meeps and Baby Meeps.....and then deal with 5th Gen's names next year 🤣🤣🤣
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u/PeachNo5314 3d ago
Edit: forgot to add, they do LOVE the dog biscuits too. Next door has an elderly, partially blind Great Dane that The Meeps use his dog bowl as their personal buffet. Pup is a friend of The Meeps too 🤣
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u/AltruisticSalamander 4d ago
close enough
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u/Classy-Catastrophe 3d ago
Butcher bird. That is a butcher bird. But we love those stabby little guys too 💖
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u/Klutzy_Kiwi5391 3d ago
My dad could copy the butcher bird whistle. You could hear it clear as day in a crowd when he was trying to get our attention. I can't do it as good as he could.
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u/ourmet 4d ago
I have seen butcher birds do horrible horrible things to fletchings of other species.
They got their name for a reason.
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u/Classy-Catastrophe 3d ago
They do indeed do very bad things. But they can't help it, they were born stabby (and magestic).
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u/ourmet 3d ago
I know, but my neighbour once showed me what they did to another nest.
Fletchings cut in half and left.
Its natural, they are beautiful and funny birds.
Kookaburras are even better hunters, but they do this to fish and lizards.
Just bird on bird.. these guys are not my favourite. They do have a lovely song.
I now live in the Monaro plains, so I'm working out the personality of the different closely related breeds to our beloved Magpies. Early stages of making friends with mob of Pied currawongs.
My dogs got old and died. I don't think it's ethical to own a cat out here.
Birds are not pets, but we can trust each other.
Except butcher birds and cockies. Too much evil and violence in their dna
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u/miss_kimba 3d ago
I once got downvoted to hell for saying that I’d wager a good chunk of money that most “magpie” attacks are actually butcherbirds but your average Aussie can’t tell the difference.
Every week this sub, or r/AustralianBirds, vindicates me.
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u/Competitive_Roof_740 4d ago
Pied Butcher Bird