An ongoing collection - more recordings are being added over time.

The Australian 'magpie' is "unrelated to true [European] magpies (Corvidae), it is a large, long-legged, long-winged, terrestrial butcherbird with only slightly hooked bill".* It was given the name by European settlers merely because of its pied black-and-white colouring.
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*Peter Menkhorst et al. 2019, The Australian Bird Guide (Revised Edition), CSIRO Publishing, p. 436.
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Photo credit: Antoni Camozzato, www.inaturalist.org/photos/50816508, under a CC BY-NC License. (Photo of Gymnorhina tibicen telonocua taken in South Australia in April 2017. Image slightly modified.)

Australian 'Magpies'

About two or three weeks before the date of this recording, I noticed that, in the hours before dawn, the local Australian White-backed Magpies (Gymnorhina tibicen telonocua) had started singing and improvising with a rather lovely melodic motif that I had never heard them singing before (in four years of living in this location). I finally got the opportunity to record them on a dead-calm Sunday morning.

In this recording, the melodic motif is heard in the first call, from the magpie in the mid-ground to the left (fascinatingly, this magpie seems never to vary from singing the pure motif).  The magpie in the foreground to the right seems to be improvising on this motif (and just as fascinatingly, it seems never to repeat it exactly in its pure, simple form, as presented by the magpie to the left). Every now and then, though, they sing it together: motif and improvisation superimposed on one another. A few of the more distantly audible magpies might also be participating in the musical exchange. And, at one point, there is an unexpected contribution from an entirely different species of bird (which may have been chiming in, occasionally, very subtly, all along?).

Also occasionally to be heard in the background are the locally omnipresent grey-headed flying foxes (fruit bats), and a ring-tailed possum. And the local town hall clock tower bell ringing out the fifth hour of the morning (from a distance of 2 kilometres, as the bird flies).

Recorded around 5 am with a pair of MKH 8040s in NOS array into a MixPre-6. (Best listened to with good quality headphones with a flat frequency response.) [Remastered version uploaded 25.11.19.]

Please enjoy also: https://soundcloud.com/hearingbeings/20190814-australian-magpies-improvising-on-a-melodic-motif-before-dawn-one-month-later.

Photo credit: Philip Roetman, https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/57591728, under a CC BY-NC License. (Photo of Gymnorhina tibicen telonocua taken locally in December 2019.)

2019.07.21 Australian Magpies Improvising On a Melodic Motif Before Dawn

Australian White-backed Magpies (Gymnorhina tibicen telonocua).

One of a couple of follow-up recordings made just over one month after recording https://soundcloud.com/hearingbeings/20190721-australian-magpies-improvising-on-a-melodic-motif-before-dawn, one street away from where the previous recording was made. In this recording, the responding magpies are somewhat distant and faint.

Recorded on a weekday morning at 5:30 am with a Sony PCM-D100. (Best listened to with good quality headphones with a flat frequency response.)

Photo credit: Antonio Camozzato, https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/50096621, under a CC BY-NC License. (Photo of Gymnorhina tibicen telonocua taken locally in September 2019.)

2019.08.14 Australian Magpies Improvising On a Melodic Motif Before Dawn: One Month Later

In the first part of this recording, listen for the quiet 'grunting' or 'chortling' sounds and the soft 'squeals' in the foreground, both much lower in frequency than the background lorikeet calls, of the juvenile magpie feeding. In the second part, other magpies arrive, and the juvenile begins a louder plaintive calling. At the end, one of the tenants comes along and gets into his car under the adjacent carport, and the magpies fly off.

The dramatic increase in the number (and loudness) of rainbow lorikeets audible in the background, compared to the earlier recordings in this set, is due to the fact that the local gum trees have flowered - a favorite food of lorikeets; and of fruit bats, too.

Recorded around 8:30 am with a Sony D100 concealed very close to where the birds feed. (Best listened to with good quality headphones with a flat frequency response.)

Photo credit: Antoni Camozzato, https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/50584509, under a CC BY-NC License. (Photo of Gymnorhina tibicen telonocua taken locally in September 2019.)

2020.03.22 Back Yard Magpies Feeding (No. 6)

You can find interest and beauty in your own back yard - literally. In this case, the 'back yard' is just a narrow garden strip adjacent to an iron-roofed carport behind a two-storey apartment block. For several months, one of the tenants has been leaving out food and water for the magpies, and they're now in the habit of dropping in regularly in the morning and evening to feed. There are three or four adults, and one juvenile, that are the regular visitors. The juvenile often feeds alone, after the adults have left (it usually waits till they leave), or before they arrive. While feeding, the magpies sometimes pause to lift up and tilt back their heads and sing. I enjoyed watching and listening to their behavior for a while, before the obvious thought struck me. So, over several mornings, before the magpies arrived, I've tucked the Sony D100 under some ground-covering leafy vines very close to where they feed. Because of that, among the more familiar kinds of vocalisations, I was able to hear them making some more quiet kinds of sounds (like their soft grunting, chortling sounds while feeding) that I haven't heard before. The other birds audible in the background are mainly rainbow lorikeets.

Recorded around 7:30 am with a Sony D100 concealed very close to where the birds feed. (Best listened to with good quality headphones with a flat frequency response.)

Photo credit: Antoni Camozzato, https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/50816508, under a  CC BY-NC License. (Photo of Gymnorhina tibicen telonocua taken in South Australia in April 2017. Image slightly modified.)

2020.03.17 Back Yard Magpies Feeding (No. 1)

The first part of a recording made at the somewhat pervious boundary between Deep Creek Conservation Park and adjacent pastoral land. It features a (mystical and trance-inducing) all-surrounding deep soundfield of chanting and warbling Australian Magpies. In the distance, frogs along a creek tirelessly sustain their own incessant song. From over three kilometres away, the ocean is clearly audible, breathing deeply and loudly, and roaring when waves crash ashore.

The recording begins at 05:50 and ends at 6:24. (Astronomical Twilight: 05:56. Nautical Twilight: 06:27. Civil Twilight: 06:58. Sunrise: 07:27. Average wind speed 3 km/h SSE, temperature 8.5° C, relative humidity 90%.) Recorded with a pair of MKH 8020s (AB 50 cm) into a MixPre-6-II. (96/32 WAV > 48/24 FLAC.) No post-processing, other than minimal EQ.

The second part of the recording can be heard here: https://soundcloud.com/hearingbeings/20200706-deep-creek-winter-first-light-part-2.

(Best listened to with good quality headphones with a flat frequency response.)

Recorded on land of the Kaurna people that is now Conservation Park and pastoral land.

2020.07.06 Deep Creek. Winter. First Light. Part 1.

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Exploring hearing, the hearable, and the hearer, as an event, a mode, and a dimension of Βeing (τὸ εἶναι).

2020.03.22 Back Yard Magpies Feeding (No. 6)

Hearing Beings