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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,

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Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff. Lauren volgebon here it's a probable bet

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Speaker 1: that the person who coined the term bird brain never

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Speaker 1: dealt with a magpie. For the article. This episode is

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Speaker 1: based on hos to work. Spoke by email with Tim Burkehead,

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Speaker 1: Emeritus Professor of Zoology in the Department of Animal and

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Speaker 1: Plant Sciences at the University of Sheffield, Great Britain. He's

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Speaker 1: the author of the book The Magpies, The Ecology and

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Speaker 1: Behavior of Black build and Yellow build Magpies. Birkehead has

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Speaker 1: studied both species in the field in Europe and the

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Speaker 1: United States, and notes that people who deal with magpies

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Speaker 1: on a regular basis have a keen understanding of how

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Speaker 1: smart they are. He said, every gamekeeper will tell you

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Speaker 1: how clever magpies are avoiding people carrying a gun as

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Speaker 1: if they know. Magpies most impressive trait is knowing themselves

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Speaker 1: in a mirror. A very few animals can do this.

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Speaker 1: Magpies can also be taught to speak. They hide food

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Speaker 1: food and can relocate hidden food with incredible accuracy. Intelligence wise,

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Speaker 1: magpies are very much like their fellow corvids, Jay's rooks, ravens,

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Speaker 1: and crows. Hastaf Works also spoke with Walter Kunik, a

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Speaker 1: senior scientist with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Kunig has

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Speaker 1: studied magpies in the past and is currently studying the

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Speaker 1: social behavior of acorn woodpeckers and patterns of acorn production

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Speaker 1: in California Oaks in the Carmel Valley of California. It

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Speaker 1: also happens to be the only place in the world

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Speaker 1: where yellow build magpies live. The yellow build variety is

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Speaker 1: a year round sociable bird. They nest in pairs by

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Speaker 1: the dozens, fairly close to each other within hundreds of yards.

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Speaker 1: In one colony Kunig and other researchers studied, they found

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Speaker 1: fifteen to twenty nests in one canyon. He said, we

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Speaker 1: referred to yellow build magpies as semi colonial. They make big,

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Speaker 1: domed stick nests with entrances on the sides that can

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Speaker 1: be a couple of feet across. The nests sometimes end

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Speaker 1: up in mistletoe clumps, which makes them hard to find. Sometimes.

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Speaker 1: Both yellow and black billed magpies are monogamous and mate

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Speaker 1: for life. Magpipe hairs build their nest together. The male

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Speaker 1: gathering sticks for the exterior, while the female works on

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Speaker 1: the interior, lining it with mudding grass. The female lays

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Speaker 1: a clutch of eggs, the number varies according to species,

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Speaker 1: usually one brood per year. Their plumage is eye catching,

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Speaker 1: black and white overall, with black and blue green. Ear

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Speaker 1: doesn't flashes on their wings and tail. Their wings are short,

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Speaker 1: but their tails are long as long or slightly longer

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Speaker 1: than the rest of their bodies. Their bills are strongly

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Speaker 1: pronounced like a crow's, and true to their name, either

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Speaker 1: yellow or black. They're typically seventeen inches long that's forty

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Speaker 1: to sixty centimeters and weigh five to seven pounds that's

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Speaker 1: two to three kilos, with an average wingspan around twenty

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Speaker 1: three inches or fifty eight centimeters. Magpies are what scientists

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Speaker 1: call opportunistic eaters. In other words, you might see a

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Speaker 1: magpie eating carrion, but it probably makes up only a

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Speaker 1: small amount of their diet. Kunnig said they're mostly out

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Speaker 1: there foraging among the grass, eating insects and other stuff

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Speaker 1: they can find, but they will eat small mammals. Magpies

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Speaker 1: do have a couple of unique behaviors of note. Kunnig said,

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Speaker 1: they're one of the few animals that are known to

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Speaker 1: have funerals. Nobody really knows what's going on, but when

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Speaker 1: magpies find even parts of a dead magpie lying around

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Speaker 1: because it got eaten or died, a bunch will come

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Speaker 1: together and start squawking. They recognize this dead bird is

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Speaker 1: one of their own, and it sends them into this tizzy.

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Speaker 1: They're obviously doing something. The general consensus is that they're

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Speaker 1: social enough that when they see a dead magpie they

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Speaker 1: want to know who it is, how it affects them,

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Speaker 1: and how it affects the social stratification of the group.

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Speaker 1: Another notable behavior is what Birkhead called testing the locks,

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Speaker 1: a sort of ceremonial gathering in the spring. He explained

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Speaker 1: it as noisy clusters of up to twenty magpies and

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Speaker 1: the trees, chasing and calling. Our research showed that these

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Speaker 1: are triggered by dominant members of the non breeding flock

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Speaker 1: invading the territory of established pairs. Essentially, they're testing the locks.

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Speaker 1: Could I break in and take over if I push

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Speaker 1: hard enough. This is how some young magpies get territories

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Speaker 1: and how some old ones lose theirs. Some legends and

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Speaker 1: stories from folk tales to nursery rhymes have demonized magpies

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Speaker 1: as birds that swoop into steal shiny objects, or are

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Speaker 1: harbingers of doom, but Burkehead said that's probably just a

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Speaker 1: combination of bad press and familiarity breeding contempt. He said,

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Speaker 1: if magpies were rare, everyone would rave about their stunning

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Speaker 1: white and black ear doescn't plumage their blong tail and

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Speaker 1: perky manner, and they've become more common in the UK

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Speaker 1: in the last fifty to sixty years, and anything common

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Speaker 1: can be perceived as a pest. Magpies take songbird eggs

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Speaker 1: and nestlings, and understandably people hate them for this, but

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Speaker 1: sparrowhawks take many more, but do so invisibly so are

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Speaker 1: less maligned, and domestic cats take many more. Still, the

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Speaker 1: increase in magpies coincided with the general decrease in songbirds,

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Speaker 1: and people put two and two together and made ten.

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Speaker 1: Our research revealed no casual link between the two. Magpies

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Speaker 1: do take songbird eggs and chicks, but so do lots

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Speaker 1: of other predators, and small birds have evolved to cope

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Speaker 1: with this and produce replacement clutches. Today's episode is based

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Speaker 1: on the article why you should love the much maligned

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Speaker 1: Magpie on how stuff works dot Com written by Patty Rescuesen.

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Speaker 1: Brain Stuff is production of iHeart Radio in partnership with

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot Com and is produced by Tyler Clang.

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