magpie behaviour

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tjmac
tjmac's picture
magpie behaviour

Hi, just wanted to share what I've seen over the years with my magpies. Had a young female come in 2007. Wanted help to feed her first babies. We have fed her and her babies during brooding and raising time ever since. She had the same mate till 2014. Although I have seen him mind the babies and feed her,he never seemed to care much for them and was completely ruthless when it was time to chase them off. After the 2014 babies were raised she turned up with another bloke. (a young one).I saw her original mate around for a while after, so nothing had happened to him.Her new one loved his kids. Which was a good thing as we had a bad hailstorm in 2015. She got a leg and a wing busted up pretty bad and took about six weeks to recover. He fed all three babies the whole time. It has been really funny watching him trying to chase them off when they're grown. He swoops on them and when they cringe away, he gives them a disgusted look and walks off. The thing is, this afternoon I when i when out to feed them, she's got another new bloke. Again this one is young and I saw her old one just 2 days ago.I always assumed they bonded for life, but apparently not.

Woko
Woko's picture

Good observations, tjmac. An excellent book on Australian Magpie behaviour is Australian Magpie by Gisela Kaplan published by CSIRO Publishing. I think there's a new edition out.

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