Owl News: Homemade Owl Becomes "Magpie God"
Owl News: Homemade Owl Becomes "Magpie God"
I normally don't post goofy stuff, but I'm finding Australian local news has a very dry and self depricating humor I enjoy.
Article from UPI
A new South Wales, Australia, man attempted to keep birds away from his cat's food with a homemade owl sculpture, but "accidentally made a magpie god."
Giulio Cuzzilla said he learned that magpies can be deterred with owl sculptures, but he didn't want to spend a lot of money on one, so he made his own out of paper mache and feathers.
"I now know it doesn't really look like an owl, but a dead cat rather," Cuzzilla wrote in a comment under his TikTok video.
He said the magpies initially seemed to fear his sculpture, but they eventually started to approach it and engage in behaviors Cuzzilla said seemed like "worship."
"I accidentally made a magpie god," he wrote.
Gisela Kaplan, an emeritus professor in animal behavior at the University of New England, said the magpies in the video aren't actually showing deference to the owl sculpture, they are making territorial calls to try to scare it away.
Cuzzilla said the magpie god's reign came to an end when a storm dismantled the idol. He said he has now grown a fondness for the magpies.
"When you observe their antics, you can't help but find them quite cute," he wrote. "We even named one of the babies Ricky."
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Magpies are corvids, like crows, ravens, and jays.
Edit: it turns out Australian Magpies are just named after (European) magpies because they look similar to them. Above is a European Magpie, so ignore that for this story, but it's still pretty do in leaving it up. Plus it died the differences to the Australian Magpie.
Australian Magpies are just black and white without the glossy sheen and are not corvids.
Australian Magpies are not.
Thank you!
Aussie and Kiwi animals always seem to trick me. 😢
I'm trying to learn about the continent better, I swear!
I love corvids. And even if Australian magpies are not corvids, they are awesome! They are beautiful birds, have a nice acoustic repertoire, are smart, curious, and playful. If I lived in Australia, I'd try to befriend some. I regularly visit a murder of crows nearby. And I have a magpie and two eurasian jays who visit my balcony regularly to get some unsalted roasted peanuts :)
I was surprised to hear they were kept as songbirds. I'll have to check out what sounds they make.
I have some blue jay friends that come by every day to grab some peanuts in the shell. I love those guys!
It's really weird because when I was a kid I read northern hemisphere books about things like magpies and opossums only to discover later they were talking about some totally different thing to what I was imagining.
Cue me in Europe, "what is that amazing exotic bird with the long tail?"
Oh wow, that possum is really different!
American Opossum
Australian PossumI'm a fan of the opossum. Like the vulture, I feel a lot of people overlook all the cool things they do because they aren't traditionally cute animals.
Yeah they seem awesome. People don't appreciate them or raccoons like they should!
To complicate matters even more, in Australia the possum is a beloved native animal they try to conserve, and in New Zealand it's a terrible pest species that we try to eradicate.
Flax is another wtf.
Wow, that flax doesn't look even remotely similar!
I've learned a bit about some of Australia's problematic history with animals, so I guess it makes sense they screwed up New Zealand with them too.
Learning about this stuff makes me feel less hopeful about it ability to return terraform and colonize Mars or wherever... we can't even do it on Earth without ruining everything!
I like that there's a bunch of Ozzies and Kiwis on here. It usually comes up during s moment if my obliviousness, but I end up learning so much!
I really like the diversity too! People from many different places. At certain times of the day my all has a bunch of stuff in German or French.
Edit: just realized I can follow you for owls!
I do have a pretty active French follower on here that I've practiced some French jokes and such with, and I think that's the same person that told me about the owl/cookoo kid's song.
The Brits taught me their owls go Twit Twoo and we got to talk some Taskmaster.
I try to keep things varied and not too US-centric. I've started using US and metric units when I mention any numbers, and try to mix in a portion of things that would be local to Europeans and you Southern Hemisphere guys.
IIRC, NZ only had one native owl, but I've learned lots about Australian owls and lots of their conservation efforts. The Powerful Owl is really cool, and I like the Sooty Owls and Black and White Owls, and I posted a Tasmanian owl recently too.
You're following me specifically?! Uh oh! I've read a little how Kbin works but haven't used it myself. If you get to see all my posts, I don't think you'll see anything too bad, but you will get occasional bad news about owls and forests, but the rest is pretty normal culture stuff. I try not to get sucked into anything negative. We've had some local politics go national recently, so I try to fill in outsiders, but I try to keep it fairly neutral even though I'm liberal.
Ernest is working on making a thing where we can separate our following people feed from our communities feed, so I think it will be just fine. I'm trying to learn more about the world as well, and I love nature.
Yes we only have one species of native owl, the ruru (aka morepork), which is small and cute. We had two but the other one is extinct.
The Brits taught me their owls go Twit Twoo
Wait, what do yours say? I've heard of to-wit-to-woo.
The early British settlers were convinced the ruru says "more pork" but I don't know what they were smoking - maybe they were just hungry. Not sure how to spell what it does say, though.
Edit: their main call.
They have different ones for "I have just caught food" and "we are going to hang out in this clearing having a conversation" though.
Hah, I can hear "more pork" but only because I'm listening for it. Ruru would be the one I'd vote for.
The twit twoo owls are Tawny Owls, which we don't have in the Americas. I'm on the east, right in between DC and New York, and the 2 owls you're likely to hear are the Great Horned Owl and the Screech Owl, which is named worse than the Morepork, because it doesn't screech at all.
The GHO will "hoo" or "hoot" so if you ever hear the term "hoot owl," this guy is the reason.
The Screech Owl has two calls, a trill and a horse whinny. I think they are both very adorable, and the furthest from a screech sound you can get.
Now if you want a horror movie screech, the Barn Owl is who you want to go to. I think you guys may have these too, they're pretty much everywhere now but Antarctica. Make sure your volume is turned down for this one!
I may as well give you the last common NA owl, the Barred Owls. This guy says "who cooks for you, who cooks for you all?"
Australian possums killed my parents papaya tree so I have a love hate relationship with them
Papayas are good, I would be upset too.
Our possums eat thousands of ticks, so I am very pro-possum.
I'm glad you corrected that
I'm glad somebody told me. I'm just an enthusiast, not an expert on any of this, so I try my best to present factual info, but I don't know everything.
Plus I enjoy when you guys can teach me something back.