What kind of bird likes shiny objects. Gifts for magpie-crow

02/21/2013 | Magpies

About twenty years ago, sorting through the editorial mail, I shook out a piece of cardboard from the envelope, on which, apparently, an engraving was pasted

On the back of the cardboard were two words - "Pass to Peskov." I thought that this too modest artist decided to draw attention to himself. I thought that the artist would show up. So the drawing ended up in my papers and lay there for twenty years. Several times "magpies" caught my eye. I admired them, remembering my childhood - near our hut, these beautiful birds in winter on a frosty day sat on pussy willow branches with white balls.

And once my father beckoned me with his finger: "Look ..." Through the cracks in the shed, I saw two magpies hanging on the carcass of a slaughtered kid. But the father did not swear, he simply drove the forty, and they sat, as before, on a large tree: “God's creation. Where can she get food in winter ... "Father cut off a piece of goat meat and put it on the stones, near the barn:" This is for the birds ... "

While in America, I learned: forty in this country do not know. Famous travelers Lewis and Clark were delighted to meet an interesting and beautiful bird in the very north of the country. And with a special messenger they sent an expensive gift to the president. And in Norway, the magpie is considered a sacred bird. And this is noticeable. In a hotel in Oslo, magpies would sit at my window.

As follows, I learned the habits of forty, while in the Khopersky reserve. In the summer I lived in an empty school. I woke up, I remember, from some rustle. I see a magpie working at the window, extracting seeds from a cocked watermelon. I cut off a piece of seeds and watched.

And three days later I heard some kind of commotion. A neighbor in the next yard was shouting and pointing at someone else. It turned out that the magpie grabbed a puff chicken, but the burden was too heavy. Another time I was sitting in a boat, covered with a tarpaulin - it was raining lightly. I look through the crack and see: right next to the boat, moored to the shore, a magpie, resting, drags a young horror. The snake does not want to fall into the water. But the magpie turned out to be stronger, two times contrived to peck the victim. Here the snake is already dangling over the water in the beak of a magpie.

On the same day, I told about the case to an experienced observer Vasily Alexandrovich Anokhin. “This is a common case. I knew a couple of forty that hunted mice. The bird sits by the mink and waits for the minute it needs. And you see how the magpie flew with a mouse in its beak ... "

The magpies are credited with building their nests. Magpie nests are built in pairs and are very durable. At the base of the nest is a large clay ball and a ball of thin branches. It would seem that the nest should serve for several years - the forty is a sedentary bird. No, every year in March, magpies can be seen hovering over the field. After the wedding current, the construction of the dwelling begins. It serves magpies until autumn. And by winter there are tenants - owls and falcons. Just as woodpeckers unwittingly prepare housing for hollow-nesting birds, so the magpies "give" their dwelling.

But in the summer they protect the new nest from any encroachment. Once I decided to check the reliability of the building and looked into the nest where the chicks were. The magpie jumped out of the nest instantly, but immediately returned and sat down on a twig nearby. "May knock off my cap." But the matter ended in furious swotting of the bitch on which the bird was sitting. This is the name of the action - "substitution reaction".

On a winter day ...

And once again in the fall I found in the nest a small ladies' watch, on a thin cord, "Zarya" watch. The watch was stained with bird droppings, the metal on the watch turned green - apparently, a woman's jewelry had been lying in a magpie's nest for more than one year. And it was an important magpie theft street.

But why does a magpie need a watch? That forty is a thief has long been known. The crow is just as thieving. (Not because of the name of the bird: thief-she.) I had to see how crows steal eggs in cormorant nests. One begins to tease, bully the bird sitting on the nest, and as soon as it rises to stand up for itself, the other crow grabs the egg.

But all this, as they say, is in the order of things. Much more interesting are the criminal facts about the abduction by birds of valuable and not very valuable, but shiny or colored things. Here are the documents of my long-term investigation.

In the Berdyansk recreation center "Primorye", a wristwatch suddenly began to disappear. Local Sherlock Holmes shrugged their shoulders in sorrow - a mystery! Nina Belovdenko solved the riddle. Early in the morning, opening her eyes, she saw a magpie walking on the windowsill. “I look: I jumped, grabbed a watch from a neighbor’s nightstand and immediately onto a poplar…” In a nest on a poplar they found five watches, a ring, fifty dollars, a light belt with a buckle and half a dozen metal bottle caps.

Ravens steal in much the same way. And you can talk for a long time about stolen teaspoons, glasses, watches, razor blades, fishing lures, coins, keys and other temptations for jackdaws, crows, magpies, jays. But how to explain this oddity - to take possession of a shiny object? After all, the glass-pieces of iron have no practical use for birds.

In one of the recently published books on animal behavior, I came across the term "pre-aesthetic impulse", which should be understood as the germ of a sense of beauty in animals. This idea seems to be correct. Tufts, combs, bright feathers in the wings, red breasts, rainbow tails in the colorful world of birds do not exist at all to please a person. Paints and glitters are intended for the bird's eye, for the eyes of a feathered girlfriend. She must appreciate this beauty. And, therefore, she must feel it! Is it not this “pre-aesthetic impulse” that makes our corvid birds encroach on everything that glitters and stands out in color?

This reflection is confirmed by the behavior of the Australian bowerbird. The modestly dressed male of this bird carefully decorates the place for the mating meeting. Having built a love hut, he carries shells to it, shiny wings of beetles, flowers, spreads the leaves of plants upside down with a silvery seamy side ..

Studying the aesthetic taste of bowerbirds, ornithologists scattered all sorts of things in their habitat in abundance - take your pick! What color attracts bowerbirds more than others? It turned out: blue. Why? So far, there seems to be no answer.

That's all. It remains to thank the unknown artist for the masterful presentation of the wonderful birds.

"In the very center of the table, on a very beautiful vase of flowers, the Magpies were sitting. Cold with horror, I began to examine the table. Knives and forks were scattered about, butter was smeared on plates and oil prints of bird paws scattered all over the tablecloth. They were spectacularly decorated with the smudged pieces of a broken sauceboat with spicy seasoning.
There was clearly something suspicious about the behavior of the criminals, I decided. Instead of immediately running away from here, they sat with shining, clear eyes among the broken flowers, swayed regularly and exchanged complacent remarks. One of them, with a flower in its beak, looked at me with an admiring glance for a minute, then with uncertain steps walked across the table and, unable to keep on the very edge of balance, crashed to the floor. The other Magpie giggled cheerfully, stuck her head under the wing and instantly fell asleep. I was amazed at this strange behavior of the birds. Then I noticed a broken bottle of beer on the floor and immediately understood everything. The Forty had their own feast here, and they had enough. I caught them without difficulty, although the one on the table tried to hide under an oiled napkin and pretend it was not there. "

The magpie bird (Pica pica) has not the best reputation among the people. It is believed that she is prone to theft (kleptomania), and most of all she is allegedly attracted to shiny objects. And such a reputation has a magpie not only in Russian folklore, but throughout Europe.

Thus, in Gioacchino Rossini's opera The Thief Magpie, the servant girl was accused of stealing the master's silver, which the magpie actually stole. In the popular European comic, The Adventures of Tintin, a similar story takes place in which a magpie turns out to be the thief of emeralds. Well, in Russian fairy tales, rhymes, nursery rhymes, the magpie-thief is a constant heroine.

Scientists decided to check whether the magpie is a thief and why she loves shiny things.

Specialists in animal behavior at the University of Exeter (Great Britain) conducted special experiments, which resulted in the complete rehabilitation of the magpie.

She does not steal rings and silver spoons from the windowsill, do not hang anything that is bad on her!

A group of ornithologists led by Tony Stefard set up a series of experiments with magpies, in which both birds from the nursery and wild individuals living on the campus took part. In the laboratory room or in several places on the university campus, which are often visited by magpies, biologists have laid out various objects, shiny and non-shiny.

Among the items were shiny metal bolts and screws, foil rings, square pieces of aluminum foil. In half of the cases, these objects were painted with matte blue paint, the rest glittered in the sun. The experimenters laid out piles of food (nuts) near objects that were attractive to a human eye.

Biologists conducted 64 tests with wild magpies, and

only in two of them did the birds become interested in the proposed objects, and both times they turned them over with their beak and immediately threw them. In the rest of the tests, objects were simply ignored, and there was no difference between shiny and blue.

Nuts attracted them much more.

In tests with magpies from the nursery, none of the birds came into contact with objects - neither shiny nor non-shiny.

From observations, scientists concluded that the proposed objects caused fear in forty, like any unfamiliar objects, and did not attract them at all.

“We found no evidence that forty are attracted to shiny objects. Instead, we noted neophobia: the usual fear of novelty in animals, ”says Tony Stefard.

Where did the myth come from that the magpie loves everything that glitters?

According to scientists, we project our own addictions onto forty.

It seems to us that forty should be attracted to silver and gold objects, so if they are sometimes interested in them, we remember that. At the same time, we do not notice when the magpies are interested in more inconspicuous objects, and even more so we do not notice when they ignore them. So the magpie became the heroine of folklore and earned the glory of a thief without any evidence of this.

“Surprisingly, there is very little research on behavior and cognitive performance in forty,” adds Natalie Hempel de Ibarra, co-author of the article. - Although, just like crows belonging to the same family, magpies have a large brain and developed thinking. They recognize themselves in the mirror, find objects that disappear from their field of vision, and remember when and where they hid food in reserve. In our experiments, magpies have also shown that they are smart: instead of rushing at what glitters, they showed reasonable caution in front of unfamiliar and unpredictable objects. "

The crow is known for its thieving tendencies. This cunning bird looks out for everything, then it lies badly and is left unattended.

She steals everything, but the bird is especially attracted by shiny objects in which the sun's rays are reflected: glass, mirror fragments, metal objects.

The crow is an abduction virtuoso. She does not disdain bird eggs, which she drags away from the nest. When it is difficult to take possession of prey, inaccessible to each bird individually, crows gather in flocks. Such a flock of feathered robbers behaves aggressively. Other birds, having noticed such an accumulation, scatter and hide in secluded places. Ravens love to tease poor birds, and other feathered predators at this time drag eggs from someone else's nest. Weak chicks are also a welcome prey for robbers, and the raven simply throws out the poor parents from the nest.

Having stolen the egg, the crow hurries to hide and feast on the desired prey away from the crime scene. The bird prints the contents of the egg from the blunt end. Yes, and carries the raven's egg in an unusual way, it punches a hole in the egg, inserts the upper part of the beak into the resulting hole, and flies away, but the desired egg hangs in its beak. The feast takes place alone, sharing the loot is not in the rules of this robber.

Crows can distract the duck sitting on the eggs by grabbing the wings with their beaks. At this time, one of the robbers steals duck eggs without a twinge of conscience in front of a frightened duck. From seagulls, crows snatch the caught fish on the fly, force the bird to release its catch and serve other people's prey themselves. A flock of crows can attack a cat and effortlessly kill these animals.

Hear the voice of the crow

In nature, there are two types of crows - gray and. Birds differ in plumage color. The gray raven has smoky gray feathers, the head, throat, wings, tail, beak and legs are black. Another type - the black crow is completely black, its feathers have a characteristic metallic sheen.

Crows play an important role in human life. They eat a variety of pests: rodents, May beetle larvae, which live underground at a depth of 5-10 centimeters. The crow plunges its beak into the place where the larva is, and prey in the beak. The fat, thick, yellowish beetle larvae are a great treat. In nature, the crow also plays a role. Its old nests are used by other birds, which lay eggs and incubate in someone else's nest. Ravens are not afraid of domestic animals - horses, cows, a dog and make friends with them. They protect their friends from danger, and even catch fleas in their fur.

Crows have a well-developed signaling system, and they always warn about the danger not only of birds of their own species, but of other feathered inhabitants. But depending on the country of residence, crows have dialects, so foreign women hardly understand their friends. But even such cunning and experienced birds have natural enemies. In crows, this is an owl that hunts at night while sleeping. And in the daytime, a predator attacking a flock of crows will not be left without prey.

The crow behaves interestingly in situations where food comes across, covered with a hard protective coating. If you cannot break a shell of a clam or a nut with its beak, the crow flies up and throws them on a hard surface (stone, asphalt). Feathered geniuses are well acquainted with the properties of soil and easily distinguish stones from sand. Moreover, other ravens easily learn from their relatives. And crows also show mathematical abilities, they count to five, but the multiplication table is unlikely to be up to them.

In the spring, crows begin to build a nest, build it from dry branches, rags, grass, wool, and decorate with shiny objects.

Many people believe that magpies steal shiny objects to decorate their nests. However, this story originates from a 19th century French play. So what is a magpie really? What about her myth, and what about reality?

Reputation and reality

The reputation of the magpies is such that these birds are widely known for their theft, as they collect shiny objects everywhere to decorate their nests with them. They also feed on the eggs and chicks of songbirds, a terrible habit that has led to the extinction of many breeds. However, in reality, magpies are not thieves - they are just curious. They are interested in various objects, but do not actually show an increased interest in shiny objects. It is true that they are predators that prey on songbirds, but there is no evidence that their activities have led to the extinction of species or even a decline in the population.

The roots of the legend

Forty is far from the best reputation. In general, there are many different species of these birds, but most of all attention is paid to the Eurasian magpies. In 1815, two French playwrights wrote the legendary play The Thief Magpie, in which a servant was sentenced to death for stealing silverware from his master, although the real thief was forty. Inspired by a French urban legend, Gioacchino Rossini staged an opera entitled Soroca, which used the same plot. And then such glory was fixed for the forty. Two hundred years later, scientists made forty objects of experiments, which finally made it possible to dispel the myth and clear the name of this bird. They offered the common Eurasian magpie two slides of nuts - one lying next to the shiny objects, and the other with the same objects painted in matte blue paint. Objects noticeably distracted the bird from food, however, it was not observed to give preference to shiny objects. In only two of the 64 tests, the forty took the silver ring, but quickly threw it away. “We cannot say that magpies never steal shiny objects,” said study author Stephen Lee.

Magpies and shiny objects

"However, we also have no evidence that magpies are more attracted by shiny objects than other birds." The findings of this study complement what ecologist Tim Birkhead found. He studied forty in nature for ten years and is the author of a book about these birds. Birkhead is absolutely sure that magpies don't steal. “There is no evidence that humans have ever found anything shiny in the nests of forty,” he said. However, he reports that magpies are very inquisitive and pick up a variety of subjects to study them. So in those days when people kept forty as pets (as was the case with the French play), these birds had a huge number of opportunities to pick up various valuable items. And that might explain the rumors of their kleptomania.

Terror

But is it true that magpies terrorize other bird species? “There is no question that they eat eggs and songbird children,” Birkhead said. The magpie is a persistent, noisy and conspicuous predator. So if you were happy with how a pair of blackbirds are happily trying to start a family in your yard, then you can be very upset when a magpie arrives and kills their chicks on your lawn. However, there is no evidence that the predation of magpies was responsible for the decline in the songbird population. In a scientific paper published in 1991, Birkhead described how he and his colleagues investigated the population density and breeding success of forty and fifteen songbird species.

Research

Between 1966 and 1986 the number of forty in Britain increased steadily at about five percent a year. However, this did not have any negative impact on the habitation and reproduction of songbirds.
In fact, the greatest increase in the population of songbirds was observed at the same time as the increase in the population of magpies, which indicates that any decline in the population of songbirds was caused by poor habitat rather than magpies. A scientific work published later, in 1998, and covering an even longer period of time, contained identical conclusions. Even domestic cats are a greater threat to songbirds than magpies.