Aussies embrace once ‘nerdy’ hobby as top bird revealed
Everyone has a bird story – many are black and white but most often it has every colour under the sun.
The rainbow lorikeet has been unveiled as the nation’s most spotted bird after a count involving nearly 60,000 Australians.
The noisy miner flew into second place and the infamous – and perhaps misunderstood – Australian magpie swooped into third.
Participants in BirdLife Australia’s 11th annual national bird count tallied up 4.1 million birds during the week-long community event, with the results released on Monday.
No two states shared the same top three, a reminder of how birds are integral to the unique character and identity of each state, the non-profit says.
Keen birder Sean Dooley said birdwatching did not deserve its “nerdy aura”.
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“What I’d like to see is more and more of those people… get over that stigma… and just embrace the fact that you really enjoy looking at them,” the Birdlife Australia spokesman said.
“Almost everyone has a bird story.
“Almost everyone has a connection to birds and they do delight in seeing them.”
One family that knows all too well about the delight of birds is the Blooms, whose life-changing encounter with an Australian magpie was captured in print and a Netflix film.
Penguin was an injured baby magpie who provided mum Sam Bloom a new purpose as she adjusted to life in a wheelchair following a six-metre fall while holidaying in Thailand.
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“She absolutely changed everything,” Bloom said.
“We thought that if we left her there, she would have died, because she was just so tiny. So we picked her up, brought her home, and she just changed the dynamic of the whole house.”
Since nursing Penguin to health and setting her free, the family has rescued more than 10 other birds.
While magpies are known to swoop unsuspecting bystanders, the highly intelligent species can also recognise up to 30 human faces, as well as show emotion and mimic human speech.
They’re considered Australia’s most familiar bird, popping up in half of all participants’ counts.
But the magpie could not snag top spot in any state or territory, pushed aside by lorikeets in Victoria, NSW, Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia and its cousin-in-colour, the magpie goose, in the Northern Territory.
The bold and loud sulphur-crested cockatoo was leader in the nation’s capital, while the silver gull, or seagull, snapped up Tasmania’s crown like a chip on a beach.
Bloom’s husband, Cameron, said the family would do the next national bird count later in 2025.
“It helps bring awareness to the importance of birds in our life and to help on an environmental level, any of the species that are endangered … [The counting can] help the scientists tally and work out where to put their resources,” he said.
Expert and novice birders can join in the next count through the Birdata app from October 20.
