Everyone always get to see Magpies giving raptors a hard time.
Well today i got what looks like to me the Whistling Kite getting his own back
The pic is not great, crappy day today.
Whistling Kite VS Magpies-7471 by rawshorty, on Flickr">[/url] Whistling Kite VS Magpies-7471 by rawshorty, on Flickr
This photo does make me wonder what happened next - do you know the outcome as the other magpie looks set to confront the raptor?
Alison
~~~~~~
"the earth is not only for humans, but for all animals and living things."
Hi, Alison. They were a long way from me and only took the one shot, the image i posted is a very large crop.
If the Kite did indeed have him (looks like it in the pic) he let him go and the 4 Magpies gave up the chase straight away.
It was only a very short chase which i think is unusual as i normally observe the magpies giving Raptors a hard time for longer periods.
Shorty......Canon gear
Canberra
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rawshorty/
I couldn't find the 'birds behaving badly' line so l've added my sightings of Maggies to this story.
Whilst feeding cattle this week, l could see (from the tractor cabin) a Magpie lying on the ground belly up with one wing out to the side. There was a Kooka in the branch of the tree directly above the fallen Maggie so my first reaction was that a baby had fallen from a nest or a Kooka had attacked a Maggie and was awaiting his time for a kill.
How wrong was l? As l drove closer, there were 2 Maggies on the ground beside the fallen one, and another 3 in the tree with the Kooka. I really couldn't believe my eyes when l saw both Maggies on the ground attacking the fallen bird. One 'predator' was pecking at the throat region and the other pecking at the lower belly/genital region. The two predators were hell bent on causing damage and l'll swear the Kooka was looking on with glee.
I stopped the tractor to watch thinking l should not interfere with Mother Nature but then nurture took over and l started the tractor and tooted the horn. The predators looked up and the victim took the opportunity to flee before the other 2 woke up. But to my dismay, the other 3 in the tree took off after the victim, closely followed by the 2 predators and the very interested Kooka.
All of the Maggies flew into the dense top of a Gum tree but by the look of it, they were again attacking the hapless fallen victim.
I've never seen anything like this before - has anyone else? And does anyone have any ideas what would cause Maggies to attack on of their own?
Yep, i have seen this last year. One Magpie holding another down while 5 others took turn at attacking him. And this went on for 5 minutes and they were not worried about me being only a couple of feet away. Maybe Magpies are like the human bully?
Shorty......Canon gear
Canberra
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rawshorty/
Nasty buggars, eh what?!
Maybe survival of the fittest at work, the one being attacked may have some deformity or weakness, which "Mother Nature" is taking care of??
Dale Huonville, Tasmania
That doesn't surprise me in the least. Some might remember one of my stories?
I was driving down the road when I saw two Magpies walking across. The car infront of me ran over one and killed it. The other Magpie escaped. I saw what happened next in the mirror . The surviving bird walked back to check on the bird (?), for one second I thought, how nice, he misses his mate. No.... he started to ripp him apart and began to eat him. No friendship amongst birds, a meal is a meal it seams, even if two minutes ago it was still your friend
M-L
mtck, what you've described is a fairly common occurrence where I live. On each occasion the "victim" has recovered & flown off with the other magpies if I've disturbed the group.
I haven't taken any notes of when this occurs so I don't know if it might be related to breeding or some other event. However, I have a vague recollection that it's a social behaviour & not designed to physically injure. My strong suspicion is that it's behaviour which establishes dominance within magpie parties.