Hi all,
Just thought I would share this with you.
A friend of mine up here in Rockhampton (Central Queensland) observed
strange behaviour of a magpie last weekend. It apparently was hopping
around the perimeter of her house ( a high set Queenslander style) a
couple of times, then proceeded to venture underneath her house where
it `stole' a plastic coathanger. It tugged with this object trying to
somehow secure it for transportation, but kept dropping it.
Eventually it got it onto a fence where the coathanger lodged itself.
The clever maggie removed it from the ridges within the fence,
dropped it back onto the lawn, then arranged its wings around the
coathanger - and literally flew with the coathanger around itself to
its nest!
There was another incident recently on the Rockhampton news of a
magpie gathering fence wire and adding this to its nest. It certainly
looked weird, and I pity the poor babies if they happen to get cut on
the wire.
I wonder why they would choose to collect such obsure man made objects when
building their nests?
Has anyone else observed similar behaviour of nesting magpies?
Jo Chadwick
Central Qld University
Rockhampton 4702
|
