For more than 120 years, a question involving magpies has endlessly ruffled feathers — why is the bird on South Australia's state flag called a piping shrike? Trying to come up with an answer can feel like a wild goose chase, but ornithologists insist there's a simple solution.
Why is the bird on the state's official badge called a "piping shrike" – and what exactly does that mean?With its wings outstretched, the piping shrike has pride of place among South Australia's official symbols — it is emblazoned on the state flag, is the emblem of SA Police, is depicted on the state's coat of arms, and appears on government buildings, letterheads, driving licenses, email signatures and other official logos.
"It always makes me smile, how emphatically people say, 'the piping shrike — that's the mudlark, we call it the mudlark' … and just how powerfully this myth has stuck," he said. "Of all the forest noises that salute the morning, none are so pleasant or melodious as the carol of the magpie," Melbourne's Argus informed its readers in 1884.
Firstly, there's the Australian magpie. Its white-backed subspecies go by the scientific names Gymnorhina tibicen telonocua and tyrannica.Both are widely found across parts of Australia, but diverge in appearance and habits."They're completely different, there's no relationship whatsoever," explained animal behaviour expert Gisela Kaplan, author of the book Australian Magpie: Biology and Behaviour of an Unusual Songbird.
"Australia recently become a federated nation in 1901," explained the History Trust of SA's Kiera Lindsey.
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