I was helping The Boss plant his garlic on the weekend — he was a bit late with it, as usual, and grumbling that the soil was already getting cold — when he told me to stop scratching around for the last of the tomatoes and listen.
It was a butcherbird singing along the river, soon joined by another one.
We don’t get them here very often and The Boss rates them highly — as a songbird they’re up there with the shrike-thrush and rufous whistler as far as he is concerned.
He says they are likely the most melodic song bird we have in Australia and, at their best, produce rich and varied melodic phrases — often unique to a particular bird and that mark that bird’s arrival.
Rarely are they atonal or unpleasant, although juveniles starting out can mis-hit a note or two while they are learning — but it’s not long before their ear reaches butcherbird form and the harsh notes are so few and far between they are forgiven.
There are many recordings posted on YouTube showing the breadth of butcherbird musicianship and he’s played me a few. I try to look interested.
While their lilting, tuneful song is beautiful, their feeding habits can be remarkably brutal — which is where they get their name. They have a sharp hook on the end of a strong beak and its job is to impale their prey — usually a lizard or beetle or large insect – after which they beat it furiously to death on a branch, or in the fork of a tree.
They will often use this tree fork or a rock crevice as a larder, where they leave their murdered prey so they can dine at their leisure later.
The adult grey butcherbird has a black crown and face, a grey back and a white collar. The underparts of its grey wings are also white and the females are coloured much the same as the males, although they are smaller.
The juveniles lack the hook on the beak and are olive brown instead of black and the white parts are buff-coloured; they can be mistaken for a small kingfisher.
Coming from the same family as magpies and currawongs, they can be aggressive during nesting time and have been known to swoop and fly straight at people’s faces, occasionally drawing blood. The swoop is often accompanied by a maniacal cackle — clearly a time when the butcherbird forsakes its musicianship.
While they can be found all over Australia, The Boss isn’t sure why we don’t hear them along our patch of river more often. The guidebooks say they prefer thicker wooded areas in the inland, so maybe our ribbon of river trees is not quite enough to attract them — although they are common enough in urban gardens.
But their visit lightened him up and the serenade finished as he inserted the last of the garlic cloves and covered them up. That south wind was sharp as it got up in the late afternoon and I was relieved when he motioned to me to head in to relax by the fire. Woof!