Giblet-warming sequel to Harrison's magpie saga

Magpie-loving Canberrans! Can it be that some of that hard-to-put-into-words fondness and admiration we have for magpies is a cousin of what lots of Australians admire about Ned Kelly? Back to this stimulating idea in a moment. Meanwhile, we report that although the streets of pioneering Harrison in pioneering Gungahlin are not yet so much tree-lined as sapling-lined, there is the occasional grown-up tree and last Thursday a young celebrity magpie, released on the ground, was quick to flutter up into one of these grown ups. Coincidentally, just as this magpie alighted on a Harrison branch, a new book about Australian birds, with lots to say about magpies, alights on this columnist's desk. The book is biologist Tim Low's Where Song Began – Australian birds and how they changed the world.* We will wing our way back to it in a moment. Read the full story by Canberra Times columnist Ian Warden on the Sydney  Morning Herald website.