{"id":25177,"date":"2014-07-18T05:24:01","date_gmt":"2014-07-18T11:24:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=25177"},"modified":"2014-07-18T06:17:36","modified_gmt":"2014-07-18T12:17:36","slug":"magpies-scavenging-entrails-rejected-by-raptors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/18\/magpies-scavenging-entrails-rejected-by-raptors\/","title":{"rendered":"Magpies Scavenging Entrails Rejected By Raptors"},"content":{"rendered":"

On my last Montana trip I think I figured out part of the reason\u00a0why Black-billed Magpies often perch high on power poles in some areas.\u00a0 I’m sure this\u00a0apparent behavior\u00a0is known to others but it was something new for me.<\/p>\n

But first some background.<\/p>\n

(Some of these photos are graphic so proceed with caution if you have “sensitivities”…)<\/em><\/p>\n

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\"american<\/p>\n

It’s a common (though not universal) practice for many raptors to reject the\u00a0digestive tract\u00a0of their prey – intestines in particular.\u00a0 It’s a behavior I’ve observed and photographed many times so I’ll provide several examples.<\/p>\n

When this female American Kestrel reached the body cavity of the vole she was feeding on she very deliberately extracted the intestines…<\/p>\n

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\"american<\/p>\n

and dropped them to the ground before consuming the rest of the vole.<\/p>\n

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\"american<\/p>\n

This kestrel did the same thing.\u00a0 Here it has removed the intestines and caecum (this time they’re extended with food)…<\/p>\n

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\"american<\/p>\n

and\u00a0flung them over the side of the post.<\/p>\n

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\"red<\/p>\n

I’ve seen a variety of raptor species do the same thing.\u00a0 Here a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk has pulled away the large and small intestines of a rodent\u00a0and is dropping them to the ground.<\/p>\n

It’s common for\u00a0rejected entrails\u00a0to never make it to the ground.\u00a0 I’ve often seen them on top of posts and draped over the edge of other raptor perches.<\/p>\n

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\"black-billed<\/p>\n

About three weeks ago, thinking I might get an interesting take-off shot,\u00a0I stopped to watch this Black-billed Magpie perched high up on a power pole in the Centennial Valley of Montana.\u00a0 Just before I put my lens down and drove on down the road the magpie…<\/p>\n

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\"black-billed<\/p>\n

reached down to the top of the insulator and picked up a large gob of intestines I hadn’t noticed\u00a0that had apparently been left on the pole by a raptor (Red-tailed Hawks, Swainson’s Hawks and a few others are relatively common in the area).<\/p>\n

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\"black-billed<\/p>\n

And then the magpie flew off with its prize.<\/p>\n

In the years I’ve photographed raptors and magpies I’d never before put two and two together.\u00a0 Raptors often reject intestines.\u00a0 Magpies are opportunistic, omnivorous scavengers that I’ve often seen on the same perches commonly used by raptors.\u00a0 And magpies are corvids so they’re smart and they use both sight and scent to locate food.\u00a0\u00a0So I strongly suspect that individual birds learn to watch raptors feeding on perches and then move in later for possible rejected entrails.<\/p>\n

This apparent behavior seems obvious to me\u00a0now and I’m surprised that I hadn’t realized what was going on\u00a0earlier.\u00a0\u00a0Sometimes I can be a little dense…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On my last Montana trip I think I figured out part of the reason why Black-billed Magpies often perch high on power poles in some areas. I’m sure this apparent behavior is known to others but it was something new for me.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334,363,392,1493],"tags":[28,50,57,2103,157,220,610,451,2102,1013,2104],"class_list":["post-25177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-black-billed-magpies","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-montana-favorite-locations","tag-american-kestrel","tag-behavior","tag-black-billed-magpie","tag-corvid","tag-graphic","tag-montana-2","tag-pica-hudsonia","tag-red-tailed-hawk","tag-rejecting-intestines","tag-scavenging","tag-sense-of-smell"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/red-tailed-hawk-0719-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-6y5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}