Middi the Magpie-lark

 

Logan named the little bird "Middi" on the way over to Nicola and Peter's house. If this bird keeps this same coloring, it is a female (males have a black throats). The magpie-lark is smaller than the magpie and has a smaller, thinner beak than the magpie. Since Nicola and Peter have a magpie which is much bigger and more aggressive, they plan to (hopefully) feed Middi, but let her go when she's big enough to fly. She doesn't have her flight feathers, which is why she only was able to get about a foot or so off the ground. According to Nicola, once a Murray magpie falls out of the nest, the parents often abandon it.

The magpie-lark pair for life. Breeding is opportunistic. In drier climates such as ours, mating occurs after rains (we sure had enough of that in November!) According to a wikipedia article, the magpie-lark is one of only about 200 bird species that sing in duet. Each partner produces a note a second, but a half-second part so that it sounds like one bird singing. Not much research has been done about duet-singing though since in the northern hemisphere "a fairly small number of female birds sing." (That's what the article says.)

Logan hopes to go back and feed Middi some crushed up meal-worms. Hopefully Nicola and Peter are able to nurture the little fellow. It's demanding work; they had to feed their magpie, Stuart, every half-hour or so). I sure hope we didn't just ruin their summer holiday!