Would anyone like to see pictures of this bird I’m friends with
I love her
i am loving people’s attempts to identify this bird its just an australian magpie, she’s not a chimera, she’s not a fucked up crow, etc. she is just….. a regular run of the mill magpie
She is also a mother…. here is her yelling son who she brought to me one time
HOW THE HELL DID YOU BEFRIEND AN AUSTRALIAN MAGPIE
i give her chips sometimes
From what I’ve heard, australian magpies are actually quite nice if they trust you not to hurt them. Swooping season happens because, as a species, they’ve learned that most humans are Dangerous and so they preemptively attack to protect themselves and their young. If you’ve been nice to a group of magpies, though, they’ll remember you and you won’t be swooped at.
Magpies are extremely cool birds, and very intelligent… which means that they know that humans are the biggest threat around and that we can be good friends. Thus, swooping, and also not swooping humans who have proven themselves to be trustworthy sources of food.
The funniest interaction I ever had with some magpies was when one of my former workplaces had our Christmas lunch as a picnic in a park. A pair of magpies were teaching their fledgeling how to beg for food from humans. First one would approach, crouch down and coo at us; someone threw them a bit of cheese. Then the other adult approached, crouched down and cooed at us; someone threw a piece of cabanossi. Both tidbits were picked up, taken back and shared with the offspring… then the adults were standing there looking at the fledgeling and then at us, obviously going “Go on, then, you try it!”
Fledgeling magpie nervously walked closer to us, looked back at its parents, then half-crouched and yelled “RAWK!” in our direction. We cracked up laughing, startling the poor baby, but he or she got over it pretty quickly when a HAIL of bits of cheese and sausage landed all around.
I’m fascinated with the concept of baby animals being TAUGHT, complete with focus-drawing behaviors, followed by demonstration, about how to interact with humans.
Emitting a recogniseable call is key with magpies. I lived just down the street from a park with a huge swooping problem for about 20 years, so I had time to run a lot of experiments. The conclusion I came to is that magpies don’t recognise humans visually, but aurally. If you make a friendly noise every time you see them (mine is a cooing ‘hello birdie’), don’t startle them or try to get too close, and politely go around them when they’re on the ground, they’ll soon remember you as a Polite Human and you’ll be exempt from the swooping as soon as you make the right noise.
Which is why I routinely crossed that park in swooping season, greeting the first magpie I saw in my usual fashion, and then strolled across the park in safety while assorted people in business attire ran past me screaming with their briefcases or handbags over their heads. The filthy looks I used to get when I stopped to speak to a magpie and then it went off to attack someone else were really pretty funny. Was it my fault they weren’t being polite?
We moved into a new swooping zone a few years ago, and I immediately began the campaign again. I got swooped a couple of times the first year, but never since. it really does work!
Not magpies, but I have a similar crow story.
At one point in college, my brother rescued a downed baby squirrel from a crow that was trying to eat it. Which earned him the unending enmity of that particular crow. Every time he’d walk past, he would get dive bombed.
Eventually my brother decided he’d had enough. So he walked out, right into the center of “get attacked by crow” territory, and stopped. And held out his hand, which had an offering of food. The crow came down and inspected it, and decided it wasn’t hungry and didn’t eat it.
But the peace offering was accepted and the crow left him alone thereafter.
