It looked pretty serious to me.
Magpie-6180 by rawshorty, on Flickr">[/url] Magpie-6180 by rawshorty, on Flickr
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Magpie-6184 by rawshorty, on Flickr">[/url] Magpie-6184 by rawshorty, on Flickr
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Magpie-6181 by rawshorty, on Flickr">[/url] Magpie-6181 by rawshorty, on Flickr
Great sequence Shorty. (I love your photos
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Back to the birds,
Magpies are very vicious birds. What was the outcome of this? Hard to tell if it is an immature bird or a female. One possibility could be he wanted to get rid of the young one, he seems to go straight for the eye? Or was he after a girl? Do you know?
M-L
I would assume it is a juvenile... It is a common behaviour of social and family bird species for the mature birds to regularly "test" the younger ones in order to reinforce the ranks of the family or group. Usually the young would surrender, but perhaps the youngster may be up for a fight (like in your photos). I have witnessed this with families of Choughs... the young will show submissive behaviour towards the older ones by immediately rolling on their backs each time a quarrel occured.
Brandon (aka ihewman)
M-L, thanks. The "victim" was being chased though the trees for quite some time before it landed in a clearing, and you can see what happened to him, after about a minute of this he flew off with the other one in hot pursuit untill i lost sight of them.
Brandon. It sure looked rough...........that is one tough lesson to learn. Glad my dad didn't treat me like that.
Shorty......Canon gear
Canberra
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rawshorty/
Definite "pecking order" behaviour happening there
Sorry, couldn't help it. Great series of shots Shorty!
West Coast Tasmania