Magpie? Lark? Actually Neither!

A cold front came through last night, and today is drizzly, cloudy and cold again. I like the rain for the garden, it gets very dry very quickly at this time of year, and it's not easy to weed when the ground is rock hard.

The damp weather did give me my Blip for the day, however. This bird was trawling through the back lawn to see what grubs he could find brought out by the damp. He's a good friend.

He's (I do know he's a he, by the black throat, and white eyebrow) a Murray Magpie, or magpie-lark (Grallina cyanoleuca). Some think he's just a smaller version of the State Emblem, the Australian magpie, although if you look at the black and white markings they are really quite a bit different.

The Magpie-lark was originally described by English ornithologist John Latham in 1802. Like many Australian birds, it was named for its apparent similarity to the northern hemisphere birds familiar to European settlers. In fact, it is neither a magpie nor a lark and is not particularly closely related to either but, in the light of modern DNA studies, is now grouped with the monarch flycatchers.

It's roughly the same size as an English Blackbird, and boldly pied in black and white, and they are a familiar sight around the country.

In this image he's just looked up quickly because he's heard Raji making a racket alongside me on the deck. Bloody cat!