IA and IB sat on the power line this morning at dawn, singing and preening. The brown colouring of the immatures is clearly visible.I did not see or hear any adults. As far as I remember, IA and IB only voice this particular song (an audio recording can be found on day '07') when the adults are not around, and I wonder whether their songs are a practice to address future territorial disputes, reinforcing their territory as the dominant male does whenever he is sitting on the power pole. Maybe the immatures are even 'forbidden' to utter any calls other than begging for food when the parents are around. Further observations may provide a provisional answer / theory.
Later in the morning I took the photographs below of IA foraging in the garden. I wonder why the magpies wipe their beaks on the grass, and at times on the palm tree stump. Is it to clean their beaks and to sharpen their beaks? A quick google has not brought up a scientific explanation. I will take a video of this beak wiping soon.
Magpies are extremely playful, as was shown on the youtube video that I posted on day '05'. We can easily picture bear or lion cubs playing, and associate play with mammals honing the survival skills that they will need in their adult life, but magpies are very playful too. I have not seen them play hide-and-seek yet, but have observed IA and IB playing shortly after IA's foot had been released from the fishing wire, and before IB entangled his foot. They were rolling around on the ground, pulling on each other's wings, play fighting, and running after each other. I hope that I will see something similar again soon, and maybe even get a chance to video it.
I just googled Australian magpie behaviour and came across a post called Play behaviour of Australian Magpie . This blog includes some great pictures that illustrate magpie playfulness. It looks very similar to IA's and IB's play that I observed a couple of months back.
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