
Photograph by Animal Spot (www.animalspot.net)
Simon Patton 著
睇睇其外貌,澳洲喜鵲同香港同名嘅雀仔顏色差唔多一樣,身體嘅羽毛都係一半黑色一半白色,黑白圖案構成一種十分明顯嘅對比,同時又好似暗示佢嘅性格太複雜啦!實際上,真實情況真係如此。
Just from the way they look, Australian magpies look pretty much the same as the birds that go by the same name in Hong Kong, one half of their feathers black and one half white. This black and white pattern makes a stark contrast and, at the same time, it hints at its rather contradictory nature! Actually, magpies really are a contradiction.
白色好似可以代表喜鵲美麗嘅方面。我舊年買到一本名為《香港嘅傳統節日》嘅書本,其中有不少令我覺得零舍感觸嘅描寫,而最令我難忘嘅段落就係涉及到七姐節所紀念嘅織女及牛郎嘅描述:“一直到現在,牛郎留喺銀河呢一畔,織女又留喺另一畔,雖然兩人可以見到對方,但係毫無辦法溝通。只有一年一度逢到七月七日嘅時候先至有機會相見。嗰日,世界上所有嘅喜鵲就會飛向上天,用佢哋翅膀造成一條巨大嘅橋,以便織女走到丈夫身旁”。我睇,真正嘅愛情應該係咁樣嘅,擁有行喺幾百萬喜鵲翅膀上面嘅微妙感覺!
The white would seem to symbolize the magpie’s beautiful side. Last year I bought a book entitled Chinese Festivals in Hong Kong. In it, there are quite a number of passages that really moved me, but to me the most unforgettable one of all describes deals with the Festival of the Seven Sisters which commemorates the Weaving Girl and the Cowherd: “There they remain to this day, the Cowherd on side of the Milky Way and the Weaving Girl on the other, within sight of one another yet quite unable to communicate except once a year, on the Double Seventh. On that day all the magpies in the world fly up to Heaven and make a bridge with their wings for the Weaving Girl to cross over to visit her husband.” This is how true love should be, I think ― with the wonderful feeling of walking across the wings of millions of magpies!
香港嘅喜鵲叫聲嘈雜,唔係特別悅耳動聽㗎。澳洲喜鵲反而天生賦有一把非常好聽嘅聲音。平時,好聽嘅雀仔叫聲好似唱歌咁,歌唱般嘅旋律格外吸引人。澳洲喜鵲嘅好聽就截然不同,唔係唱歌而係一種令人陶醉嘅𠺘口聲!喺一般情況下,旋律係一音一音咁唱出嚟嘅,係由一系列單音組成嘅,不過本地喜鵲一開口就突然間創造出類此旋渦般嘅音樂溪流,好難分別出個別嘅節拍。用𠺘口呢個單詞形容佢特有嘅鳴聲或者容易使人產生誤會:講得更加正確嘅係,嗰種聲音類似係天堂下凡嘅天使𠺘口聲!我平時朝早五點鐘起身,嗰時全世界仲係黑蚊蚊嘅,乜嘢都見唔到,但係喺漆黑中通常可以聽到喜鵲喺最為陰暗嘅深處為黎明準備,唱出獨一無二嘅叫醒歌曲。
Hong Kong magpies make a rather raucous sound that is not very pleasant to listen to. But rather surprisingly Australian magpies are endowed by nature with an extraordinarily beautiful voice. Generally speaking, those birds with pleasant singing voices have a melody that is particularly attractive. However, the magpies in Australia are completely different: they don’t sing, they make a kind of intoxicating gargling sound! Ordinary melodies are song note by note, a sequence of single sounds organized into a unit; but as soon as the magpies of this place open their beaks they suddenly give rise to a musical stream of sound like a whirlpool, in which it is hard to distinguish individual notes. Perhaps using the term “gargling” to describe the sound this bird makes may give rise to misunderstandings: to be more precise, that sound is the gargling of angels in Heaven! Usually I get up at five in the morning at a time when the world is still pitch-black and you can’t see anything, but in that utter darkness you can often hear the wake-up song that the magpies have prepared for dawn, singing from the darkest depths of the night.
澳洲喜鵲識得發出好多唔同嘅叫聲,雖然最為突出嘅係嗰種仿效𠺘口聲,但係其實佢哋仲有三、四種其他嘅叫聲,好容易令到你以為係屬於幾種唔同嘅鳥類。自從我搬到鄉下間定居以來,我就慢慢開始學識邊隻雀仔會發出變樣鳴聲,經過一段時間之後就比較有把握唔會認錯,不過仍然仲有一啲「無主」嘅叫聲令到我冇法辨認出嚟。不過,終於有一日,我意識到嗰啲所謂無主嘅叫聲全部都屬於喜鵲:佢喺唔同嘅場所、唔同嘅情況下會唱出好唔同嘅歌,真係太不可思議啦!連年幼嘅喜鵲都有其獨特嘅叫聲,你一聽到就即刻知道年幼嘅喜鵲已經出現喺附近樹林裏面啦!
In actual fact, Australian magpies know how to make a number of different calls. Although the one that imitates a sound like gargling is the most conspicuous one, there are also three or four others that would make you think they were made by a few completely different birds. From the time I first moved to the countryside, I slowly began to learn which bird made which sound and, after a while, I could match the call to the bird fairly accurately, but there were still some calls that were “without an owner” and that I had no way of identifying. Nevertheless, I finally came to realize that all those ownerless sounds belonged to the magpies: rather miraculously, in different circumstances, and under different conditions, they sung different songs! Even young magpies had a special cry of their own, and when you heard that you knew at once that a new magpie had appeared in the nearby forests!
佢哋仲有另外一啲特殊行為。首先,喜鵲好似好鐘意喺地面行路揾嘢食,同烏鴉比起,佢哋行路方式零舍順利,一啲遴迍嘅感覺都冇。有時喺屋外觀察喜鵲時,我會覺得呢種雀仔太懶得起飛,短距離嘅路程佢哋差唔多每次都會選擇運用兩隻黑色嘅腳行過去,除非受到威脅時之外,就好少選擇飛翔嘅方式。
They also have a few other special forms of behaviour. First of all, magpies seem to like walking on the ground in search of things to eat. In comparison to crows, their manner of walking is especially assured and they don’t look in the least bit awkward. Sometimes when I am outdoors looking at magpies, I get the feeling that these birds are too lazy to fly ― over short distances they prefer to walk on their two black legs nearly every time, unless something threatens them. They seldom make the choice of flight.