And an ingenious food strategy.
Occasionally I rerun a favorite older post because many current blog followers have never seen it. This one was originally published in October of 2015. For this version I’ve edited the text, tweaked the formatting and changed the title.
Black-billed Magpies prefer to eat arthropods, seeds and carrion but being opportunistic omnivores they aren’t fussy and will consume an astonishingly wide variety of food items. Yesterday morning on Antelope Island I photographed a magpie demonstrating a new (to me) insectivorous twist in their diet.
1/2500, f/5.6, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF500mm f/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in
After a slow morning on the island I approached this magpie next to the road as I was preparing to head for home. The magpie didn’t fly off as I expected and I noticed that it had something in its bill, so I stopped for a closer look through my lens. At first I thought it was a peanut in the shell but it soon became apparent that it was a praying mantis egg case, along with some plant debris.
1/1600, f/7.1, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF500mm f/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in
Here’s a better look at the egg case from a different angle. Over the years I’ve seen magpies with an almost endless variety of food items but for me this was something new and I thought it was interesting enough to post a couple of documentary photos, even though they’re huge crops.
And speaking of magpie diets (and complex behaviors), here’s a little natural history snippet from Cornell’s Birds of the World that I find hugely interesting. It’s a bit of a read but I highly recommend wading through it to the end. It’s definitely worth it.
- “In Alberta in early spring, moose have an average of 32,000 winter ticks (Dermacentor albipictus) on them. Magpies frequently land on moose to feed on winter ticks (such foraging seldom elicits any noticeable response from moose). Magpies cache ticks prodigiously, preferably on bare ground rather than in nearby snow. Most of these ticks are alive and unharmed when cached (W. Samuel pers. comm.). If not recovered later, ticks may survive to egg-laying stage, potentially increasing future number of ticks on which magpies might feed. Many moose die each spring from blood loss and other tick-related problems, and magpies scavenge the carcasses. Ticks and moose, as well as other ungulates, are probably critical sources of energy for magpies in early egg-laying stage of reproduction, and their caching behavior may well result in increased supplies of ticks and carrion.”
In other words, magpies may “farm” both ticks and moose as future food sources (whether it’s deliberate or incidental, it doesn’t matter). More ticks means more moose carcasses and magpies chow down on both.
I find that immensely interesting. How many other similar relationships exist in nature that we have no clue about?
Ron
Note:
A few minutes after I published this post, blog follower Robert Bender sent me a link to an interesting study involving Pumas and the beetles that collect on their kills. Because Puma behaviors alter the relationships between various species, the study’s authors refer to Pumas as “ecosystem engineers”. I like that and it seems to me that the same descriptor could apply to magpies.
Ecosystem engineers make HUGE sense to me and I suspect that there a lot of them.
Nature is endlessly fascinating and I firmly believe that we probably have as much to learn (if not more) than we know. I know I do.
EC, I like “ecosystem engineers” too. A lot.
Question for EC. Australia is famous for its dangerous wildlife, but I have not heard about ticks there. Do you have ticks? If not, you can rejoice. If so, my condolences.
And Ron: this was a fantastic post. I have sent it to a few of my friends. Thank you.
Thank you. Frances. I hope EC sees your question.
Yes we have ticks. Mostly in coastal areas but we definitely have them. The father of a friend wound up in hospital and nearly died after being fanged and they kill dogs and other animals every year.
“After being fanged” is a new phrase for which I sincerely do not thank you for. I am going to have triple my use of bug-tick spray now.
🙂
Australian ticks saliva contains a paralytic agent that will eventually immobilize the host if enough ticks join in. Cattle have to get get run through vats of insecticide periodically to kill the ticks.
What great photos and an educational post too! I have a photo I took in February of 2019 of a magpie standing on the back of a big horned sheep. The ewe didn’t seem the least bit concerned — I’m wondering now if the magpie was eating ticks. The sage lands around here are covered with them. If we go for walks in warmer weather, the first order of business when we get home is to strip and do a tick check while standing in the bathtub! As a child I had two removed by the local doctor when they buried themselves in my skin and mom was unable to get them to “back out” using the hot end of an extinguished wooden match touched on the rear end of the tick. I imagine there are lots of rural remedies for tick removal. 🙂
Karen, on Antelope Island magpies often feed on insects that swarm on Bison but I’m pretty sure they’re almost entirely flies of varies kinds, not ticks.
And you’re right about the many rural remedies for tick removal.
About that…”How many other similar relationships exist in nature we have no clue about?”
I am reminded of it every time there’s controversy about some “important” human project delayed by some little known and understood “It’s only a ___”. The It’s only” in question being some small fish, butterfly, bird or…whatever… non-human living thing that has unfortunately come to be in the way of human progress (all too often disguised as simple greed).
The more species we cavalierly extirpate the greater the risk, it seems to me, that sooner or later we will irreversibly damage some linkage upon which our own existence depends. (See also the history of increased consumption of fossil fuels by humankind and a recent alarming and unpredicted increase in glacial melting that even our best climate change modelers did not see coming.)
Your elegant examples from nature should remind humanity that A) this world was not created just for one species (and certainly not just for us), B) all life is linked and C) messing with Mother Nature is always playing with fire.
PS: If you are ever lucky enough to see a Mantis egg case in the 30 minutes or so it takes to hatch out you are in for a huge treat. Many dozens of gangly, long-legged infants are folded into what seems an impossibly small container. I have some video but I am not sure how I might link it here.
Very well said, Jim.
Just copy the link to the video (assuming it’s online) and paste it into a comment here. I’d like to see it and I’m sure some of my readers would too.
I am in total agreement with you Jim – and would love to see that video.
Fascinating relationship. I hadn’t realized that about ticks and moose. There is probably a similar relationship between oxpeckers and rhinoceros and other large mammals in Africa. The oxpeckers take the parasites but they also remove scabs to lap some blood. “Farming” other species occurs between many species around the world. The Townsend’s Warblers that breed here in the Cascades winter in Mexico. When there they feed on the honeydew exuded by scale insects and aphids. As the insect pierces a plant cell the pressure in the cell forces the plant cell contents into the insect and results in a sweet liquid, called honeydew, exuded from their rear. The warblers carefully take this liquid drop without killing the insect so that they can produce more honeydew. The population of Townsend’s Warblers which winter here breed in northwestern B.C. and don’t do this behavior. Nature is endlessly fascinating.
Dan, very interesting that some Townsend Warblers “farm” insects and other populations of the same species don’t.
Very neat photo and find. I have seen chickadees and song sparrows eat the praying mantis cases in my yard. Yesterday while working in my yard, I found one partial eaten case and one good case. I cut the good case off the debris I was discarding and hid it in the same area. Hopefully it will not be found. The birds usually find the ones on the fence and hanging on the wisteria branches and eat them, case and all. I have also watched magpies eat very swollen ticks from the ears of mule deer. I have often wondered if birds are eating flies and including ticks off the bison at Antelope Island.
Did the mantis cases I gave you hatch?
I am amazed you have never had a tick! I have had a dozen or so in my life but only one that dug into my ankle area. They look like a little blood blister when burrowed in. We were camping so I dug it out with my pocket knife.
April, I’ll have to check to see if I can find it to see if it hatched out. Thanks for the reminder.
I probably shouldn’t have mentioned that I’ve never had a tick on me. Because I did mention it I’ll probably get one now!
So interesting! Have never seen a praying mantis egg case! And yes – 32,000 ticks on a moose!!!! That sounds horrible!!!
Thanks for the informative read this a.m. Ron 🙂
You’re welcome, Kathleen. And thanks for appreciating it.
As Lyle said, few would have realised that was an egg case, let alone been able to identify it as belonging to a praying mantis. What a catch, what a story. But first, yeah, cropped or not, that was one great exposure on a difficult subject resulting on a fabulous portrait.
I had heard long ago of creatures who “farmed” food, ants I believe, but the term ecosystem engineer is new to me but seems compelling. I love this sort of behavioural explanation and system consequences. This caching behaviour seems even more intentionally related to the concept of farming than the byproduct of the abandoned carrion example left by the puma although in both cases I guess the re-engineering of the ecosystem was an unintentional byproduct? Absolutely fascinating stuff! Thanks for re-posting this. It will have my head buzzing for weeks now.
“It will have my head buzzing for weeks now”
Granny Pat, some people need chemicals to achieve their “buzzes” but folks like us don’t need chemistry, do we… 🙂
I’d bet that 99.99999% of people would glance at that magpie and assume it was a nut. Leave it to you to take a closer look and identify it.
Magpies, mantises, moose, ticks, pumas, carrion, beetles. It’s hard to pick a favorite, but I’ll go for the Silphidae family of beetles.
Tick farming. Wow.
The concepts of ecosystem engineering and keystone species are constructs that, at some level, seem apply to most creatures, if only in their own ecological niche. Everthing’s connected. Just sayin’.
“The concepts of ecosystem engineering and keystone species are constructs that, at some level, seem to apply to most creatures, if only in their own ecological niche. Just sayin’.”
I’m sure that’s true, Lyle. But the point is, we have no clue about most of those relationships – which ones exist, between which organisms and to what degree. It’s a complicated world…
I love stories that remind me of the complexities of our world and bring me to that wonderful emotion…awe. Thank you
PS – I’ve got a little question. I’m trying to imagine how the magpie finds the cache useful if most have wandered off. Maybe the magpie returns fairly soon? Or maybe even though most of the ticks are unharmed, they don’t go far.
“Maybe the magpie returns fairly soon? Or maybe even though most of the ticks are unharmed, they don’t go far?”
Pat, it’s my guess that it’s a combination of the two. I don’t know for sure though.
Fascinating! Thanks, Ron.
You’re welcome, Sallie.
Excellent and very educational post Ron. I was not a follower in 2015 so have never seen it previously. In the first photo I would have thought it was a nut and in the second a root vegetable dug up. Really interesting about the moose and ticks. We have neither moose or Magpies here in Prescott, but we do have ticks. When I was a young kid in a semi-rural Pennsylvania I came back one morning from picking blackberries and my Mom and Grandmother picked 37 ticks from my head, neck, and arms.
Everett, believe it or not, in all my wanderings I’ve never had a single tick on me – at least that I know of. But, when I was working for the Museum of Natural History with their Junior Science Academy (we took lots of field trips) I picked many ticks off of our students. Some of them from very private body areas. It had to be done.
Some people seem to be “tick magnets”. One of my sisters was while I got very few and yes, the DO get in some very private areas…… 😉
Judy, on those field trips I eventually began to think of ticks as “crotch critters”…
I have never heard of this before. Strange and curious.
Interesting! Hate to see the Praying Mantis eggs destroyed……;)
YUK on the ticks – glad they eat them, farming/spreading them is another story! Had Starlings feeding on them on a deer a few years back.
Ecosystem Engineers is interesting – never given it much thought other than the “darlin’ beaver” we get here…….have their place in the mountains not so much on the prairie where trees are scarce IMO.
P.S. Had one deer die from ticks in the creek bed during a VERY dry summer a few years back.
Judy, thanks for mentioning beavers. I probably should have. If there’s a classic example of ecosystem engineers it has to be them.
Those poor moose– sounds miserable to me–but little goes to waste in nature-
I wish human beings could take a lesson from “raw” natural processes. Thanks
for this interesting post today.
Kris, over the years I’ve seen many references to the very large mortality rate of moose due to tick infestations. But 32,000 ticks on individual moose as an AVERAGE – that kinda blew me away. “Poor moose” indeed.
Fascinating!
Good. I think so too.