bird behaviour

How to Speak Magpie - 2

By Ron

Earlier I told you about one of the "phrases" magpies have taught us - the "J phrase", which your friendly magpie will use if (s)he wants you to follow him or her. Vicky Magpie used it to take us to her babies.

But what if your friend wants to point you in a certain direction, but does not want you to actually go there? That's what the "b phrase" is for. Your friend flies towards you, and then flies in a slow circle around and above you, like a letter "b":

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Satin Bowerbird Wooing A Mate

By Gitie

It's mating time for Satin Bowerbirds. On our recent trip to the magnificent Bunya Mountains (my very special place) Ron was delighted to spot an eligible male bowerbird trying to impress a lady with his craft at building bowers, decorating them with blue jewels to match her eyes and his singing. He will have to improve his act it seems. You can read more about them at http://wingedhearts.org/bowerbirds and the I Love Bunya Mountains facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/pages/I-Love-Bunya-Mountains/175650352477322 . You can find out more about the Bunya Mountains at http://www.bunyamountains.com

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Wild Bird Shelly Magpie Walks Into The Cage On Request

By Gitie

Shelly magpie (left with injured wing) and sister Nelly magpie

Juvi magpies - Shelly (left) with sister Nelly at our back door.

Will a wild bird (never handled or hand fed) walk into a cage just because you ask her to?

Juvi magpie Shelly injured herself on the day of the terrible storms resulting in the inland tsunami in Toowoomba and the Lockyer valley. She didn't come down with her family for two days. Due to the heavy rains we couldn't go out into the neighbouring paddocks looking for her either. We thought she may have met a tragic end in the storms, but when the rains stopped briefly on the third day Ron went scouting and found her sitting still in a paddock. Relieved to find her alive, Ron and I would go out to the fields to feed her when we could. A few days later she started to walk but after 3 weeks she still could not fly. She could only climb up tree trunks by hopping along along fallen branches that were still leaning against them as in the picture below.
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Juvi Magpies Tumbling Around Like Puppies

By Gitie

Australian magpies Shelly and Nelly are about six months old. They are Vicky and Bertie's second set of kids. They love playing around are backyard, tumbling around, playing tug-o-war, pouncing on crows and bossing currawongs. Always on the alert, they are quick to chase goannas and snakes away or put out alarms of eagles soaring in the sky. read more »

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Barn Swallow

Rufus fantail sitting by its nest For years I thought these birds were Rufous Fantails. But Sue Laing, a reader very kindly wrote to me correctly pointing out that they are actually barn swallows.

A pair of Barn Swallows flew all the way from some shrubs across the open car park and stopped right in front of Ron one morning. They twittered, saying hello, spent a few more moments with him before returning from whence they came. I have read more »

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Mothers' Problems Affect Even Bird Kids

By Gitie

Baby magoue Wendy being fed mother magpie Vicky

A recent study has found that the social environment of mother quails has a direct influence on the growth and the behaviour of their young.

The research was performed by Floriane Guibert and Cecilia Houdelier at the CNRS-Universite de Rennes 1 in France, together with researchers at the INRA in Nouzilly, France and with Austrian scientists including Erich Mostl of the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna.

Some people are surprised to hear that quails (see picture of a family of quails in our back yard below) are able to distinguish one another, let alone that they form close relationships with other quails. From our observations here at WingedHearts.org, we've found that birds as small as thornbills, pardalotes and wrens have no trouble recognising each other,

While many have known for a long while that disruption of the birds' social environment causes them stress. The researching team has shown that changing the composition of groups of quails housed together causes the birds to behave more aggressively towards one another. The level of steroid hormones (corticosterone) in their blood also increases when their group composition is disrupted. When the mothers were subjected to social stress of this kind the eggs they lay were found to have significantly higher levels of testosterone.

These results are consistent with previous findings from other groups, which showed that House sparrows, American quail family

coots and Common starlings lay eggs with more testosterone when they breed in dense colonies than when they nest in isolation.

But the new work has also shown that the eggs of females under social stress hatch later and the chicks grow more slowly after hatching, at least for the first three weeks.

We've noticed with magpie and butcherbird clutches that when our mother birds friends Vicky (see top picture where baby magpie Wendy is being fed by mother Vicky magpie), Harrie & Butchie have been going through a period stress they eggs hatched much later than their counterparts across the valley and their chicks were also slower in developing. The stress can be caused through harsh climate, strained relations with neighbouring clans, death in the family of a child, or partner. Once when we were away for five weeks during their normal breeding period, even though we had organised carers to refresh their water bowls and feed them once a day (so they would not go without in the winter drought), our bird so stressed by our absence that they delayed having their clutch till after we returned. Their joy and relief at seeing us return was unmistaken.

Sources:

http://www.medindia.net/news/Even-Bird-Kids-Affected-By-Mothers-Social-L... by Tanya Thomas

Veterinärmedizinische Universität Wien (2010, December 28). Parents' social problems affect their children -- even in birds. ScienceDaily. Retrieved January 6, 2011, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101227083745.htm

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How to Speak Magpie - 1

One of the things that has amazed me, and amazed me over and over again, is the intelligence of Australian Magpies. They know how to talk to us, but do we know how to understand what they are saying? I have learned a few "phrases" in magpie language since meeting our Maggie Magpie, and I want to tell you one today that I learned from Maggie's wife Vicky.

I call this the J-phrase. Vicky has used it at least twice with Gitie and me. She might have used it even more than that, but we perhaps didn't notice and Vicky would probably have thought how dense these humans can be at times.

Here it is: Your magpie friend flies towards you, then flies at a very slow speed in a half-circle around you, about three metres away; then she stops: read more »

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Breaking Through The Communication Barrier With Birds

By Gitie

by Francesca Doria (British Columbia)

In spite of all our New Year’s wishes, 2008 hadn’t begun well for my sister and I. Our Mum was bone-marrow transplanted and had been through a hard time, and our cat Émile, that had shared half of our lives with his endless care and reassuring love, was about to die of kidney failure. He had held out to help our mother and the two of us, but now he was wearing out, silently fading away. At the time our mother’s house had been restored, my sister and I had lived in until the inner works had started, so we had to move to our own flat where our mum already dwelt.

While I was staying with our mother and Émile, my sister Paola got back to the big house to tidy up and put in order everything. She immediately called me, informing that there was a jay she was feeding every day on my window sill and a pair of magpies building their nest on the top of our secular magnolia tree.

At first I was thrilled: I had always loved those elegant, intelligent, funny and noisy birds, and that news had surpassed my wish. But being in anxious state of mind, I nearly forgot both magpies and the friendly jay, until I came back home along with our mum, Émile and our other four cats.

The magpies were still at work: the male brought branches and other items, the female observed/examined them carefully, tried them out, sometimes discharged them, and he flew back and forth trying to find the best things to fit.

The jay was still coming, curiously watching the new incomers. There also was a couple of large hooded crows, that were the undisputed owners of that territory, from a bird’s point of view.

We came back home on 4^th March 2008: Émile made a huge effort to visit once again all the rooms of the house; although many things had changed dramatically (my sister’s room had a different entrance, one of the bathrooms had been rebuilt and much more) he recognized his house, blessed it and stood with us quietly and warmly as he had always done.

On 16^th March he was put to sleep: until that day the sky had been beautifully crystalline and blue, the sun had shone bright, the moon at night was big and white in a starry sky, the sea was stunningly navy blue and glittering with sun sparkling, there were breathtaking sunsets. But that day the sky grew dark, and heavy drops of rain began to fall. They got heavier and heavier, like a machine gun; although I was dazed with grief, I couldn’t help thinking of the poor birds outside, especially the pair of magpies, whose nest was under that torrential rain. The female sat on her eggs and never moved; the male brought her food.

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Magpie Inheritance

By Ron

Maggie Magpie and family with butcherbird friends

Until we met our magpies I had never really thought about animals having complex social systems. It’s pretty easy to think of animals as “dumb animals”! But our Maggie, sadly no longer with us, changed all that. By ‘adopting’ us into his family and introducing us to so many new friends of many bird species, Maggie opened a new world to us. All around us, birds (and, as stories from others show, other animals too) are conducting complex friendships, negotiations, and deals; they make promises, work to find good ‘positions’ in the world for their kids, and much more.

We humans get a bit uneasy when we discover we aren’t quite as far advanced beyond other animals as we like to think we are; laws of inheritance are a case in point. Surely no other animal has inheritance laws?

Well, there are clearly defined magpie inheritance laws. The countryside around our house is divided up in various ways by the various species. Magpies have one ‘map’ of the territory, on which they define the boundaries between their lands. The two species of butcherbirds here, pied and grey, share a single map between them. In other words, the magpies ignore the butcherbirds sharing their territories and vice versa, but the pied butcherbirds and the grey butcherbirds very much do take notice of each other and refuse to allow the other species into their zone. The butcherbird system has its own complexities, which I haven’t completely worked out, but I think I can tell you some details about magpie inheritance laws that might help you make sense of magpie activities around your place when a magpie dies. read more »

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Vicky's sitting on her nest

By Ron

Vicky greets us when we pay a visit Yesterday Gitie and I went to see how Vicky and Bertie are doing this year on the nesting front. Although Vicky's nest is in line with our breakfast room, it is distant and we have not been able to set up the telescope this year. So imagine our delight when we found Vicky sitting proudly on the nest. The nest is in a tricky spot, so Gitie stayed by the road while I went through the paddock to the nesting tree. This is the tree that Vicky and Maggie purchased from a crow some years ago, giving the crow their old tree and nest in return, as well as rights to get food from their human friends (us) for a year). The crow made Vicky's old nest bigger and stronger, while Vicky lined the crow's nest with lots of soft material. read more »