It isn’t often that I think I see true anger in birds. If that’s being anthropomorphic, so be it. I’m sticking to my guns.
Five days ago this group of European Starlings (and several others) was challenging a pair of Black-billed Magpies very near their nest on Antelope Island. The magpie nest is barely out of frame to the left with one of the magpies on top of it. It was obvious to me that the magpie was not pleased with the presence of the noisy intruders but the starlings apparently felt safety in numbers and pushed the issue.
There was a lot of tension so something had to give. And it did.
1/3200, f/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in
Suddenly the magpie lifted off of the nest (seen at lower left) and rushed the starlings with a speed and intensity that I’ve seldom (if ever) seen from the species. Magpies are usually quite slow fliers but this attack was lightning fast and very acrobatic. Most of the starlings are just out of frame to the right and fleeing in panic but a loner behind the magpie stood its ground and watched as its buddies made their escape.
1/1600, f/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in
It all happened so fast that I was lucky to get the magpie in frame in two shots.
The starlings escaped safely and life at the nest quickly returned to normal.
These magpie photos have technical issues but I like the behavior and I’m always fascinated by the interesting shape of the flared magpie tail that we see in both images. It’s something that I don’t see very often.
Ron
Note to photo-geeks: Some may have noticed that my shutter speed dropped by half in the .1 sec between the first and second magpie shots. I shoot in aperture priority but I’m still not sure why there’s such a dramatic difference in SS.
We have spent several summers in Park City and I’ve always enjoyed the Magpie’s beautiful marking. I’ve seen several take on a Pergrine at the top of a pine tree! They would dive-bomb him and he’d duck. I can’t recall who gave in first. I just snapped away! I enjoy your chatter as much as the pics!!
Fantastic behavioral shots Ron!
Charlotte
I just finished an interesting book: Animal Wise: How We Know Animals Think & Feel – by Virginia Morell. It’s a fascinating exploration of years of research all over the world in species as diverse as ants and bees to parrots, dolphins and chimps. Very well researched and written, To me, as Ed says, it seems beyond belief that anyone could these days be so anthropocentric as to think ascribing emotions to non-human animals is anthropomorphic (how’s that for some big words?!) I’ve always thought that non-human animals were MORE likely to express emotions, since they don’t have the intellectual filters that we use to rationalize many of our feelings away.
I’d also like to second Nicole’s recommendation of Gerald Durrell’s book, My Family & Other Animals. One of his best, though I love all of his works – very richly and well written, very funny. He is one of my personal heroes! If anyone has the opportunity to visit the zoo he founded, on the Channel Island of Jersey between England and France, GO! They specialize in breeding endangered species and training nationals from other countries to develop in-country breeding and conservation projects for their at risk species. And they don’t concentrate on sexy megafauna – reptiles (Round Island boa), small mammals (Mexican Volcano rabbit), small birds (Mauritius fody, thick-billed parrot, pink pigeon) – and lots more. Particularly those from highly endangered island ecosystems. Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust or Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust.
Ok, now there’s TWO books I’ll be investigating. Thanks, Louise.
It definitely looks like a frustration snap to me too.
Love, love, love that flared tail.
That flared tail grabs my eye every time, EC.
Having grown up surrounded by a variety of animals, domestic and wild, big and small, it has always been obvious to me that they have feelings and emotions-I think humans do, too, even though I have no more concrete, ” scientific” evidence that they do than I have with other animals. I am really fed up with strict “clinicians” who don’t seem able or willing to recognize this! Yet they’ll attribute feelings and emotions to humans…based on what??? My three dogs express sadness, joy, fear, curiosity, concern, humor, problem-solving, courtesy, gallantry, worry, sympathy,competition, contrition, etc. and play some very funny games of strategy. The rage that Magpie is showing is almost palpable! What a fantastic capture! These images are full of action and beauty. You continue to observe and document amazing behaviors…and keep discovering new ones…each blog is a documentary. I love it!!!
“The rage that Magpie is showing is almost palpable”
That’s exactly what I thought when I witnessed the behavior, Patty. I have no doubt that it was what I would define as angry.
I’ll bet dollars to donuts (chocolate) that it’s the continuous discovery of new, unexpected behaviors that keep you going…not just capturing pretty pictures …VERY addictive!!!
That’s a very big part of it, Patty – that’s for darned sure.
But I wouldn’t risk betting my chocolate donuts, even on a sure thing…
I’m absolutely CERTAIN that birds and other critters experience emotions. Emotions, after all, are nothing more than chemical reactions to external (and internal?) stimuli? Why WOULDN’T they experience emotions? Do they experience emotions as we do? We just can’t know that without crawling into their brains, and until Merlin the Magician shows up with a working magic wand, that’s simply not available. Failing that, I maintain that if it looks like a duck (anger, for example), swims like a duck, waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck! DUH!
Starlings can be real buttheads! On the Cornell Redtail Hawk cam in 2014, we had a situation where starlings nested in a pipe adjacent to Big Red’s and Ezra’s nest on the athletic field light standard. Right from the beginning, the parent starlings (who admittedly built their nest first) threw Ezra’s little food gifts for BR over the edge of the nest. But it didn’t stop there. The parent starlings routinely walked over the new redtail nestlings, harassing the little ones and the game was on! Both BR and EZ attempted to pull the adults out of their nest as they entered, but given the right angle placement of the pipe and the short distance to the light box, their feet couldn’t quite make the 90-degree bend and they couldn’t quite get their beaks in there. However, it was blatantly obvious that the starlings were on BR’s and EZ’s very last nerve. I submit that it’s not wise to annoy your predator neighbors if you’re a prey item.
ANYWAY, fast forward a little and one of the starling parents cut the margins a little too close and either BR or EZ caught it and used it as baby food. With only one starling parent and BR often (and deliberately) blocking entrance to the nest, the young starlings wandered out of the nest (looking for food) and onto the platform. One of the hawk nestlings caught the first one to fall. Granted she didn’t know what to do with it other than grab it (she was too young at that point), but she caught it and Mom swooped in to help. Ultimately the whole starling family met their doom, kinda like a starling PEZ dispenser.
The year before that, the same starling situation was present, but the timing and conditions were different. The parents weren’t as annoying, but the first starling to fledge hesitated before taking off. The redtail nestling was older, about five weeks old, and she grabbed it and ate it all by herself without parental intervention. The hawks moved to the other nest in 2015, but they’re contemplating moving back to the nest with the starlings for this year (BR hasn’t made her final decision, yet).
As for the anthropomorphizing thing, if you delete the anthro part of that, things get a lot clearer. What I mean by that is you have to step outside your humanity and look at things (or try) through the eyes/reality of the critter involved. What’s important to the magpie? Or what’s important to the hawk, etc.? From my perspective, parenthood looks pretty darn universal, even in its diversity from very good to very bad. Raptor parents are generally pretty darn fierce, while on the other end of the bell curve you find critters like sea turtles (have a nice life, kids) and guppies who will eat their young! Overall, it’s NOT a good idea to mess with parents, especially mothers. They will HURT you!
Overall, we’re far more alike than we are different (from MY perspective)! That said, I haven’t seen much evidence of emotions like greed, envy, jealousy and any of the more destructive emotions outside of humanity. 😀
Fascinating red-tail/starling stories, Laura. Thanks very much for taking the time to tell them here.
Excellent point about human destructive emotions being apparently absent in birds.
When Big Red makes her nest location choice, I’ll let you know if she chose the nest with the starling PEZ dispenser. Free food is free food and redtails seem to like the idea of free food 😀
I’m taking heart in the current studies of various animal intelligences. Instead of judging their intelligence in the rubric of asking a fish to climb a tree, there are some real studies that have been done and are being done. Example from Jack the HAHA. A couple of days ago, he caught a Mighty Vole in a small, square fenced-off area in an unbelievable tangle of brambles, brush and thorny vines. When he finished eating, he had to figure out how to get out of there since his attention was on getting the vole on the way in. He was right up against the fence, figured out he couldn’t go that way–either under it or to either side, the brambles were near immense at the top of the fence, so he had to back out, hop up onto a low tree branch and go from there. I watched as he considered all his options and took the best one that was available to him. Yep, that was definitely a problem-solving exercise!
NO arguments here. Except that our cats (current and previous) do exhibit jealousy. For example if I am patting one of them the other will watch for a while and then move in, swat the first out of the way, and move under the patting hand. And a favourite trick is for both of them to do limp falls on the carpet presenting their bellies for tummy rubs – just far enough apart so that I cannot pat them both simultaneously.
Yeah, but cats are evil 😀 Dogs do the same thing. I’ve got two and I’m just not allowed to pet just one, or go out the door with just one!
Holy Cow, Ron!! What a dramatic capture!! You can just see the tension in the Magpie’s body and how all the feathers even look like they are at full attention. It looks like the Magpie’s saying “Ok I’ve had enough of you guys!! Get your butts off my property!!!” The one starling that stayed in place must be either brave or stupid –!! Just LOVE the two photos of the Magpie & I didn’t even miss the usual iridescence (sp?) you usually capture in your Magpie photos!! I am going to give up trying to post with my Kindle Fire in the future, however!! I tried to post at 7:45 this morning and after waiting for 5 minutes with no uptake I closed it down – grrr!!
“I didn’t even miss the usual iridescence (sp?) you usually capture in your Magpie photos”
I can only wish that I “usually” captured iridescence in my magpie photos, Jo Ann. It really doesn’t happen very often and you only see the select few…
We visited Ireland last year and learned that when you see a Magpie, you should say Good Day to the Magpie, for maybe on the blue part of the wing there maybe a Fairy. Now one would laugh, but what we learned while visiting Ireland about the Magpie and the Fairy was informative and is a part of Ireland.
There’s several interesting Irish legends (for want of a better word) regarding animals, Steven. St. Patrick and the snakes comes to mind.
Credited with getting rid of the snakes,. No snakes in Ireland.
Don’t mess with mama! (Or papa) have you read “My Family and Other Animals” by Gerald Durrell? I think he adopted magpie chicks in the book… Called the “magenpies” by their Greek friend, Spiro. The wreak havoc and destruction and cause the reader lots of laughter
Sounds like an interesting and entertaining read, Nicole. I’ll have to check on that book.
Do animals have emotions? Of course they have. All you have to do is to look around. There are examples everywhere,from elephants to whales, to wolves even seagulls, not to mention those who live close to us like cats and dogs.
To me it is an excuse that non believers use to allow them to do every possible harm without having to face their own consciousness.
On the geekness side, yes I have noticed those settings,today as well as yesterday, and I must confess that it puzzles me. At first I thought it was you who changed the settings but when it happened to me I did not understand what was going on and still doesn’t.
Maybe it is related to where the focus point is when the shutter closes.
Jorge, IMO, Alan and Neil hit on the reason for my change in SS – a metering variation on the blacks and whites of the bird.
Jorge said it all for me…
Patty I’m glad to know that we share the same thoughts about this subject…
Ron, my uneducated guess on SS drop is your meter just picked up a lot more Black in the second frame. The wings flair quite a bit differently from the 2 shots. Nothing else would make sense, at least to me.
On my Nikon D810 I can pick the size of the meter circle, I’m betting you do as well? Or are you Spot Metering?
Great shot, non the less!
Alan Kearney
I agree,Alan, I usually use evaluative metering.
Interesting, Ron – I’ve never seen that behavior – mostly just harassing whatever they think is threatening or doesn’t “belong” where it is. I’ve also never seen them attack one of their own tho they do seem to know their group and hang with them. Yeh, I’m of the school that the critters do have these emotions whether “science” likes it or not! 🙂 Beautiful shots of the magpie even if not technically perfect. The shooting modes do make some strange changes at times when what they’re looking at doesn’t seem any different to me!
“The shooting modes do make some strange changes at times”
Judy, every time I think I have it figured out it throws me a curve. Cameras are like birds in that way…
Very interesting behavior and shots Ron.
Emotions in birds? Anyone watching animal behavior knows that animals in varying degrees have emotions. Look at what English (House) sparrows do when a human goes into its nesting box and removes its nest. Or what crows do when a stray from another area enters their territory, or for that matter the acceptance that birds have when treated kindly with food. I have no doubt that the Starlings were pushing the envelope. But, in the natural world it seems that the dominant holder of territory has the upper hand over the interloper, even if the interloper is with its mates. However, we must not forget that birds and other animals can tell who they see on a daily basis. Although we can’t tell one Magpie from another or one crow from another, they can. If they can’t determine and associate what they see in their environment they will not survive long.
I guess my bottom line is that the Magpie was doing what comes naturally in protecting the area around its nest – I’m just surprised that the lone Starling got away without being hurt.
Maybe a group is more of a threat then a single individual.
I think that’s definitely true in many cases, Dick – groups are perceived as more of a threat than individual birds.
Cool images, Ron.
I used to think of Magpies as flying rats, before I moved into my current digs, but my attitude towards them has changed over the years. They are very interesting to say the least. I’ve seen behavior from them successfully hunt voles to harassing Sharp-shinned hawks off of there perch only to fly a ballet with the Sharpie and both return back to a perch near the starting point over and over for about 15 minutes. Both birds seemed to enjoy the interaction. A couple of other squawking Magpies sat watching the show without joining in. Their nest always seem to be a work in progress and many species use them. The Long-eared owls used an old collapsed nest last year and I watched a covey of California Quail split into two groups and use 2 different, close proximity, nest to roost in overnight.
As to the change in exposure, I assume the meter picked up the black and white areas of the bird on the different frames and tried to render each neutral grey.
My two cents worth adjusted for inflation is now down to one.
NR
Neil, I think you’re right about the reason for the exposure change. I was just a little surprised by how much it changed.
Nice photos. I love the behavior studies.
Neil, I witnessed virtually identical sharpie vs. magpie behavior that you describe. It was a juvenile sharpie, probably a male, that was interacting with magpies. He made a soft, little whistle call throughout the encounter. It was fascinating!
Neat images of the mad magpie Ron. It does look like a mad, and determined magpie. I wonder if the starlings are a threat to the nesting magpies, or the magpie was just uncomfortable with any other bird being so close? Your blog post this morning raises lots of interesting issues. One of them is the fallacy that some people seem to be very uncomfortable with accepting that animals have emotions (anger, sadness, etc.) and they claim, ” gee you are being anthropomorphic…” As a scientist this makes zero sense to me, and frankly I think these naysayers just like throwing around big words in an attempt to make others think they are smarty pants. Have they ever owned a dog? Do dogs expression emotions? As you can see, this fallacy raises some of my own emotions :-).
Magpies interest me a lot, and I look forward to learning more about them. As I have said before, we have lots of them on our property in New Mexico and they continue to puzzle me. I once watched a group of magpies (~ 5 or so) kill another magpie! They surrounded it on the ground, and basically pecked it to death. The motivation and reason behind that puzzles me to this day. I did not photograph the event since it happened pretty quickly and my jaw was dropped open as I watched.
Thanks for re-igniting my interest in these beautiful birds Ron!
“I wonder if the starlings are a threat to the nesting magpies, or the magpie was just uncomfortable with any other bird being so close?
Ed, I suspect they’d be a potential threat to the eggs and hatchlings. Starlings can be extremely aggressive. I’ve seen meadowlarks and sparrows perched on the same place these starlings were perched with no apparent reaction from the magpies.
I’m amazed at your experience of watching magpies kill one of their own. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them even fight – BNA says they “rarely fight”. But as we often say here, birds don’t read “the books”.