What a great mimic are these birds.We Have a Four month old Staffie pup(Wally)and he has those toys that squeak when he bites them.in the yard yesterday I could hear all these squeaking sounds,not the dog but the birds mimicking the toy noise.Well that was just the beggining,like most places along the Coast we have noisy bloody Plovers who make the most horrible noise when you go within cooee of them.Minding my own business and enjoying abit of nag free time,the noise started up looking skywards for incoming attacking Plovers...nothing the noise still was still all around me.Glancing up at a tree next to me I saw this mynah mimicking away and obviously taking the mickey out of me.Just had a horrible thought,what if they start mimicking you know who...............perish the thought.Cheers Ibbo.Ps.Neighbour tells me that the correct name for these birds is"Noisy Mynahs".We live and learn.

nagged by a mynah thats illegal in some states isnt it, anyway that reminded me of my aunties magpie, when she was living just outside of waikerie on a fruit block they hand raised this damn magpie, it thought it was human and would join in on every conversation but what still brings a smile to my face is that it used to run up and down the fence barking like a dog, my auntie was mad keen on corgis had three of them, the magpie used to ride on their backs as well, barking at all and sundry, great things those birds

Hi Dave.I read about a c o c k y who had a tame crow that would imitate all kinds of things.Apparently the C..ky had a visitor who yakked on a fair bit,the crow perched behind him and made anoise like a .303 going off.Frightened the tripe out of the talkative one.He left.Cheers Ibbo.

I was watching the antics of the lyre bird on a show by david attenborough, that thing imitated chainsaws and trucks and whips as well as other birds,

G'day  .. 

In relation to Myna & Miner birds ....  Thanks to my well used 1997 version of 'Field Guide to Birds of Australia' etc cop this lot (just joking)  .....

The 'Common Myna/Asian/Indian Myna' is an introduced pest species  .. as Dave suggested is 'illegal' in some States.  Maybe all.  It is a prized cage bird in some overseas countries but because of its exteme threat to native species & other issues is declared here.  My neighbours & I do our bit to eradicate them.
They are coco brown, 24cm, darker head with yellow eyepatch, legs & beak. White flashes on wings when flying.  Territorial & aggressive to other birds. They have a distinctive hopping action.

The other bird refered to is possibly the aussie 'Noisy Miner'.  Its crown, most of face & ears are black. Rest of head grey. Bare yellow skin behind eye. Bill yellow.  Back & rump grey.  Underparts pale grey with darker scallops on breast.  Aggressive to other birds.

Apologies if this is 'off thread' but I've got a thing about the Indian Myna.

cheers .. Graham 

the part i dont like about any of the myna's is that they drive the smaller species (I.E. honeyeaters, pardelopes, blue wrens) out, I do all I can to discourage them but the little buggers still keep coming back, you probably guessed by now that I am an avid "greenie" but not to the extent that it encroches on peoples lifestyle, I used to breed australian native parrots as well as aussie finches, so I am very keen on birds in general

I think these pests flourish because young boys no longer are allowed bee bee guns to discourage starlings, mynahs and crows....They use to be excellent targets when I was a kid.. Remember Chips Rafferty in "Smiley gets a gun"???
I'm keen on feathered birds, they certainly pose a challenge to photograph.... In my back yard which is largely unkempt and a bit of a wildlife reserve we discovered that a Bower Bird had build a bower in a dense bit of shubbery... he had collected hundreds of blue milk bottle lids and placed them around, I thought the wind had blown them there...

you lucky bugger, a bower bird in your backyard. and I must confess to disposing of quite a few birdies with the old slug gun, oh and shooting mums chooks up the coit when they got in the way and the pegs on the clothes line, shot a mate up the freckle too when he wanted to go home early and i didnt want him to, his nickname, by the way, was willywog ryan, I remember saying to him "if you go home now, you can take this with you" and let him have it, fair up the kyber. no wonder they took them off us, thinking back now I was a mongrel kid.