10 - wiping the beak

Having observed IA just now, I am quite convinced that one of the reasons why magpies wipe their beak is to clean it. Have a look at the video clip. At the beginning you can see that IA has been eating something really messy and is wiping its beak on the back of the old outdoors seat. IA then forages on the lawn and wipes its beak again in the grass.

09 - flying up a brick wall

I noticed IB flying up the brick wall, but when I went outside to explore, I could not see any prey animal on the wall such as an invertebrate, or maybe even a gecko, that might have prompted this behaviour, and wonder what it was IB saw and/or wanted to catch.

08 - juveniles at play

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.

07 - magpie song audio

This morning I recorded some magpie calls. The *.wav audio is embedded below and can be downloaded by right-clicking on this link . I have also converted this file for download to an iTunes ringtone . Enjoy! More soon.

06 - magpie song video

IA and IB were foraging in the garden this morning and then IB flew off into a tree, while IA did some more foraging in the neighbours' yard.

I managed to record some of their calls: the video starts with PB sitting on the power line and calling, then there is IB responding from a nearby tree - IA can be heard answering - and it closes with PB calling again. 

05 - playful: youtube video

No observations to report today, just a few fleeting sightings and I heard magpie calls early this morning, but did not see any birds.

More tomorrow. For now, to start the weekend off with some light entertainment, here is a video that I found on youtube. It shows a particularly playful magpie. The url is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoaEBb4IN4Q

04 - magpie family

This morning, around 6:30am, I spotted the entire family on the power pole and quickly took a photograph (another blurry one, I will have to set up a camera with tripod one of these days ...) before rushing off. It is great to see PB again, second from right.

The magpies were not around late afternoon. I will try to make some time over the coming weekend to observe them, and will be thinking about a simple field experiment that I could do to find out about their strategy with regards to resource defence and/or resource sharing.

03 - foraging videos

Yesterday I left home before dawn and got back after dusk, so I did not hear or see the magpies, but this morning at 6:30am IA, IB, and PA sat on the power pole singing, and then the juveniles flew down to forage in the street and the front garden, while PA took off in another direction.

I finished this week's study materials and watched the videos about resource competition on the train yesterday, and am going to devise a simple test to see if and what kind of competition there might be, when the magpie parents come around again 
(I have not seen PB for a while, and PA is not around much either), and/or when other species might be competing for food. 

We learned that there are three types of strategies with regard to competition for resources:
- exploitative competition: this occurs when consumption of a resource such as food, water, space, mates, etc makes the resource unavailable to others within or outside of the species
- resource defence: this is a strategy that makes sense if the costs for monopolisation of a resource are smaller than the benefits reaped
- resource sharing: this is the best strategy if cooperation reduces cost of territoriality

A few months ago, when I was feeding IA and IB, so I could catch them and snip off the fishing line they had entangled around their respective feet, there rarely was competition between the juveniles over the strips of meat on the saucer, even though on one occasion IA uttered a song that must have been territorial, as IB backed off until IA had a good feed. I have also observed them calling each other when food was around, and leaving a scrap or two for the late arrival.
Whenever the parents were around, there was a clear hierarchy, with PA being the first to choose, and then PB could take a feed. PA picked on the juveniles, especially IB who was a bit cheeky and tried to get the first scrap quickly, before PA could get to it. Whenever PA pecked at IB, the juvenile turned on his back in a submissive position. I only saw a peck in IA's direction once from PA, and IA quickly went to hide under one of the chairs outside, and puffed itself up while sitting close to the ground, rather than taking the submissive posture.

So when IA came into the garden early this morning, with IB not far behind, I used some seeds to test whether the siblings would compete for these. The video is below.

As you can see they seem to be quite comfortable sharing, and it was also interesting to observe the juveniles' reaction to various bird calls in the second half of the video. I could not see the parent birds, but IA and IB seemed to react to one set of calls in particular.

Just a few seconds after IA had flown off, I saw what had gotten IB's attention earlier. So here below is a clip where you can see another species, a pied butcherbird (Cracticus nigrogularis), coming into the picture. You can also see IA making a cameo appearance at the beginning, before setting off to forage for worms around the corner. Butcherbirds and magpies belong to the same Cracticidae family and are closely related.

02 - IA behaviour, colouring

It is a cool, sunny morning, and the magpies started their song around 6am. One bird was leading and others joined in. This is called carolling and is often heard as a chorus at dawn. I have observed this magpie family carolling very loudly when they chased off other magpies that had intruded into their territory.

I will record their song soon. For now, as a placeholder, here is a link to a recording that I found on freesound: http://www.freesound.org/people/digifishmusic/sounds/42189/

IA and IB were foraging on the road for insects and their larvae, before flying up to sit on a power polet. The family often perch there, especially IA, IB and PA, the latter often accompanied by a noisy miner (Manorina melanocephala).

When I came out into the garden, IA flew down and sat in front of me, right leg drawn up (see photo below), even though the infection from the fishing wire has long healed and I observe IA skipping about and walking on both legs just like its sibling IB.

I wonder if IA has a memory of the injury from the fishing wire, i.e. if it correlates that time with the food it received, so that this one-legged stance could be a show of 'begging' behaviour to receive its reward. What kind of field experiment could be done to test such a theory?

On this photo you can clearly see the lighter greys and browns that are typical of immature birds. Their plumage turns to the stark black and white of adulthood when they are approximately 3 years old and getting ready to breed for the first time. The female of the race tibicen, common here in SE Queensland, can be distinguished from the male by looking at the top of the mantle at the nape of her neck: it is a mid grey shade rather than the white colour seen in males. The immature birds display the same mid grey colouring at the mantle and at 2-3 years old can be mistaken for females. 

01 - introduction

Last year a pair of magpies built a nest in one of the large trees across the road, and this year their family unit included two young birds. Let's call the immature birds IA and IB, and the adults PA (male) and PB (female).

In March we saw that IA  had fishing wire wound around its right foot. Even though it could only hop on one leg, it was still a great flyer and managed to outwit us each time we tried to catch it. As we did not want to stress it unnecessarily, we decided to call the experts.

First we called Wilvos (Wildlife Volunteers, an Australian institution), and they referred us to the rescue team of Australia Zoo, who have shotgun nets for capture. Unwell koalas and badly injured roos took precedence, but the rescue team called us back and were very helpful, telling us to train IA with food (bacon and mince seemed to be favourites), to enable us to catch it ourselves.

Here is a short video of IA being 'trained'. IA is the puffed up bird on the right, and it has its entangled foot tucked in, and is standing on its left leg. IB stays close to IA as it is after a free feed too.

After a week or so I managed to entice IA into the house and caught it by throwing a large towel over it, and then took it to a local vet who cut off all the thin wire that was entangled around its foot, and put some disinfectant on the wound. I released IA back home and thought that we could now stop feeding the wildlife and enjoy their beautiful song from a distance again.

However, less than a week later, IB had managed to get fishing line entangled around one of its feet too! So out came the bacon again and we managed to catch it within a couple of days, and snipped the fishing line clean off its foot. That was in April, and the actual field notes will start as of tomorrow, 17 June 2014.