Magpie Facts:from “The Behaviour of Magpies” by Marcel Doust, who at age 15 won the 1997 Science Teachers’ Association of WA, WA Museum Prize for Animal Ecology.
- The Australian magpie is related to the butcher bird and the currawong.
- Their diet consists mainly of insects, seeds and carrion.
- They live in territorial groups of between 3 and 24 birds.
- Their distinctive early morning carolling is to confirm their territory
- During the first few weeks of a baby magpie’s life, it disposes of waste by lifting and shaking its behind. This warns the mother and she catches the waste, which is encased in a sack. She then promptly eats it, hoping to retrieve unused vitamins.
- Some foods magpies consume have some hard, indigestible bits. Every so often they bring up these bits through their beaks. When this starts to happen, they begin by opening and closing their beak with their head down. They then speed this up, and after a while they keep their beak open, shaking their head violently, and out comes a congealed, crumbly object in the shape of a football.
- Immature birds, and sometimes adults, have peculiar fights. One magpie starts by grabbing another’s feather or leg. They then fall to the ground on their backs or sides, clawing and pecking at each other in a non-violent way.
- Immatures are extremely curious, and will spend most of their time pecking at anything that they find; leaves, branches, rocks and even your glasses! They even hang from clothes on clothes lines and love to swing!
Making friends
People should try to make friends with local mobs of magpies, not swing sticks around their heads every nesting season. Feed them food every so often, like sunflower seeds, wild bird see, sultanas or nuts, and talk to them.
Magpies are individuals too and not only do they have distinctive calls, they have their own likes and dislikes. In the mob that lives around the Doust house there is one that loves chilli sauce and another that delights in avocado. We only know this because we have been eating outside, had to go inside for something, and returned to find the individuals concerned tucking onto our lunches.
Three of the local birds grew up in the Doust house and while the last two were in our care their father visited every day with food for them. All have been successfully returned to the mob.
We are never attacked. Recently another chick fell from the nest but was well advanced and its parents continued to feed it and protect it on the ground. We attempted to place it in a tree and checked to see that all its limbs were functioning. While doing so its parent s continued to forage for food around us and at no time did they perceive us as a threat. Sometime later we heard the magpie cry of alarm and went outside to find four birds attacking a skink that was approaching the chick. They drove it away.
If you make friends with magpies, swooping will never happen, and the whole family will enjoy the experience. Plus, try giving your magpies names.