Songs of the suburbs

AUSTRALIANS give too little thought to the raucous, robust, diverse and occasionally aggressive birdlife in their backyards.

TO the early settlers, Australia sounded a harsh place, thanks mostly to the loud, obnoxious birdlife.

The poverty of song among the ornithological species was noted by, among others, naturalist Thomas Harvey in 1854. “There are several chirpers, a few Whistlers many screamers, Screechers, & yelpers, but no songsters among the birds here.”

Even the great John Gould, who in lavish books did more than anyone to promote ­Australia’s birds, could not warm to their calls. He noted that “feebly indeed … are represented the melodious notes” that rendered spring in England so joyous. The parrots screamed and the honeyeaters were monotonous.

Australians today like to lampoon the ­narrow-mindedness of their forebears, but those early jibes about the birds had a biological basis. Australia does sound harsher than your average field or forest overseas. Gould ­likened the call of the little wattlebird, a ­honeyeater, to a ­person vomiting. The great bowerbird’s hissing is described in one 2001 guide as a cross between tearing paper and ­violent retching. Lorikeets roar like sports crowds when they swing into trees in screeching hordes, their every whisper a shout. Gould obtained no respite from their screaming when he discharged a gun beneath their tree. Birds are not usually this loud and harsh.

Recent research shows that Australian birds are more likely than most to eat sweet foods, be intelligent, live in complex societies, lead long lives, be loud and attack other birds.

Australians give too little thought to the unusual birds they live among; that they accept them at face value rather than wondering about the forces that brought them to be.

For example, attacks by Australian magpies are accepted as a part of suburban life, when by global standards they are exceptional. In his book about magpie aggression, Griffith University’s Darryl Jones told of one terrorised school in Brisbane where, over two weeks, a bird cut the faces of more than 100 children. On one particular morning, “throngs of screaming parents at the gates were trying to get their terrified children to run quickly across the open area to the main building where the school medical officer was waiting with the first aid kit”.

Read more from Tim Low’s affectionate and informative paean to Australian birds in The Weekend Australian Magazine tomorrow, June 21.

To hear a selection of common backyard birds, click the video above. Audio courtesy of Fred van Gessel.