You’ll see Common Myna birds, also called Indian Mynas, throughout Sydney. They strut around restaurant tables, colonise balconies, peek into windows, and generally act like they own the place. They’re not original natives of Australia, but they’re so common a sight that most people assume they’re a native species nowadays.

Often these birds look a little tatty, as if they’ve lived an interesting life. But a couple of days ago I saw this glossy bird roosting on the edge of a cliff at Dee Why Headland:

Zooming out, here’s the view that the bird is enjoying. If you look carefully, you’ll see the bird perched on the rocky outcrop at the bottom of the picture, to the middle right.

Not to be confused with the Australian Miner (“Noisy Miner”), the Common Mynas were introduced into Victoria in the late 1800s, to control the level of insects in market gardens. The birds have since made their way up the coast to New South Wales. Their original home is Asia (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran, China, Indochina, Malay Peninsula, India).

Here’s another view of the same bird, still comfortably resting on the cliff edge:

At first I wondered if the bird was sitting on a nest. But then it stood up when a friend arrived to share the view, and there’s no nest in sight:

What can they see from their perch? Here’s their view of Long Reef, with two people walking on the rocks far below:

These little mynas are quite chatty and can make a wide variety of sounds. In this video of a group of birds on the same Dee Why Headland on the same day, you hear just some of the noises they make:

Common name: Common Myna, or Indian Myna

Scientific name: Acridotheres tristris

Approximate length: 25 cm

Date spotted: 29 December 2018 (Summer)

Location: Long Reef Headland, Dee Why, New South Wales, Australia: 33°44’30.6″S 151°19’04.2″E