Magpies make Australia's favourite animal sound — but their calls are more than just a pretty tune

This is it … the people have spoken, and your favourite animal sound is the iconic carolling and warbling of the magpie.

Swooping to a landside victory in our National Science Week 2023 poll with 36 per cent of the vote, magpies clearly won the hearts and ears of Australia.

Magpies' songs echo across most of the country, including in our cities and suburbs.

You can spot them in tribes of up to 24 individuals living in, and actively defending, their territory. 

While there is just one magpie species in Australia (Gymnorhina tibicen), there are up to nine subspecies, which can look quite different.

Down south, for instance, adults tend to have a white back, whereas in the north, they can be almost completely black.

What they all have in common is a formidable repertoire of calls.

Gisela Kaplan has studied magpies for decades and says their wide variety of vocalisations hints at their complex communication and cognitive abilities.

Musically, they're incredibly versatile, with their 900-ish known syllables and four-octave register — a wider range of notes than  Freddie Mercury, the legendary lead singer of Queen. 

"Magpies have probably the most variety of different calls," says Professor Kaplan, an animal behaviour scientist at the University of New England.

"They are [used] for so many situations, for emotional expressions, such as distress, fear, anger, for contacting, and then also for informing." 

'Police of the bush'

Informing calls — known as "referential signals" — are calls which have a meaning to other magpies, just like a human calling out "fire" or "dinner's ready". 

"When the magpie presents a food call, which is a beautiful little warble, but fairly short, it invites other magpies to come along. So, it's sharing the information," Professor Kaplan says.

Referential signals can also be used to warn others about incoming threats.

Research by Professor Kaplan shows magpies consistently use a specific alarm call to alert their tribe of the presence of eagles.

"It took us three years to really prove that it was a referential signal," Professor Kaplan says.

To study this behaviour, Professor Kaplan and her colleagues placed speakers on the ground, which played what they believed was the magpie's alarm call for an eagle.

Then they watched how magpies perched in trees reacted to the sound.

Instead of looking at the speakers on the ground, the magpies looked to the sky for an incoming threat.

"They're sometimes called the 'police of the bush,'" Professor Kaplan says.

“[They] will defend their territory and everything that’s in it."

Singing for the joy of it? 

Magpies have territorial calls and sing extensively — but none of these vocal expressions are used by males to woo a potential mate. 

Male and female magpies sing equally, and appear to enjoy singing solo too.

"When they do this wonderful melodic warble song, they're always by themselves," Professor Kaplan says.

After their warbling, they will often fall asleep or preen, but always in a relaxed posture.

"So, is it possible that magpies may actually sing for pleasure, and leisure, and fun?"

Scientists are yet to find out.

Magpies are also highly accomplished mimics, but seem to only copy whatever's in their own territory, according to Professor Kaplan.

She says magpies are even more accurate than the other well-known impersonator, the lyrebird.

"I've analysed the sound profile of each, and a lyrebird male has far more bravado and his song is beautiful because he needs to attract the female with his song.

"The magpie doesn't do that."

Magpies are mimicked too

Mark "Magpie Man" Muscat is known for imitating magpies on TikTok and other social media platforms.

For Mark, Australia's favourite animal sound is "always associated me with having a holiday … going out into the country or the river, waking up to the sound of magpies".

They're family-orientated birds, he says, "and that's why some of them — about 10 per cent of them — will swoop".

When making his version of the magpie call, Mark says the sound is "not from the diaphragm, like most singers do, it's from the throat muscles".

And when he warbles, any magpies around will come up to him, and look very confused. 

"I honestly don't know what I'm saying, but whatever I'm saying they'll generally come up and have a bit of a look and tilt their head a bit," he says.

In Professor Kaplan's experience, magpies are "very friendly and very intelligent."

"They form friendships with humans but in a meaningful way on their own terms, not necessarily because you want to tame them,"she says.