Overview

Also sometimes called the Irish Phoenix, the Augurey is a magical bird that is said to appear mournful or thin, similar in appearance to an underfed vulture, with Greenish-Black feathers and a sharp beak.

Specifics

They live in tear-shapped nests within thorns and brambles. They are known to be very shy and reclusive. It hunts during rainfall and it's diet consists of fairies, insects and flies. Their cry is unique in that it signals and upcoming storm.

Although mainly native to Ireland and Britain, it has since spread through most of Northern Europe.

It was once believed that the cry of an Augurey foretold death and witches and wizards used to do their best to avoid the nests of these birds out of fear, however it was debunked and research determined that their cries merely pointed to rainfall approaching.

'Why I didn't die when the Augurey cried' was a book written by Gulliver Pokeby and published by Little Red Books in 1824 that disproved the claim that the Augurey cry signaled death.

The feathers of an Augurey were unique in that they repelled ink, making them a great choice for quill feathers. The magic quill of acceptance that recorded all students within the book of attendance was believed to have been from an Augurey.

When the truth came out about their cries being able to foretell rainfall, they were used as weather forecasters, however this was difficult to deal with during the winter months when they would continuously moan and cry.

Their breeding season lines up with Valentines Day in February. They had very complex courting rituals and due to this, if an Augurey raised in captivity was released into the wild it would struggle to find a mate due to it having no knowledge of the ritual.

History

Uric the Oddball owned fifty Augureys, which when they all cried at once led him to believe he had died and become a ghost. This eventually led him to give himself a concussion by trying to walk through walls.

Several Augurey skeletons were on display around Hogwarts in the 19th century.

Poppy Sweeting compared a fifth year student coming to assist her as, 'finding an Augurey in the desert at noon', something that was highly unlikely given her isolated nature, yet also wonderful.

In 1927 Jacob Kowaiski encountered Patrick, one of many Augureys inside Newt Scamander's home.

In the late 1980s an Augurey lived on the magical creature reserve, which was visited often by Jacob's sibling.

A large and oversized Augurey named Hans was the chosen mascot for the Liechtenstein National Quidditch team and became so popular he had his own fan club.

Euphemia Rowle kept an Augurey in a cage while Delphini grew up, which she later adopted once she reached adulthood, she also got a tattoo of an Augurey on the back of her neck as her symbol. In an alternative timeline where Voldemort won, she was known as 'the Augurey'. Discovering this helped Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy realise Delphini's duplicity.

Credits/References

Written by Achilles Whitlock
Base code by Andrew Sutherland, edited by Iselin Merilä and Desmond Gray.