In the hard conditions at the end of last summer, I began
feeding the local magpies once each morning. I thought they would
otherwise be certain to lose their scruffy single young. The young –
a female – survived although it seems to have a flying problem.
I still feed them a fragment on most mornings, if they come
for it. The adult male takes it from the hand, less than a teaspoon of a
curious compound known as ‘steakette’ from the Fyshwick markets.
Recently I have noticed the adult female eating a beakful or
so and then caching the rest, usually in grass at the base of a small
shrub. This morning I noticed the juvenile do the same thing – in exactly
the same spot.
If you Google ‘birds caching food’ you will find
quite a bit on the subject. [You will of course avoid the touted ‘birds
catching food’]. The behaviour has been studied to learn about
birds’ brains and memory.
If I needed another project it would be interesting to find when
the cacher – or perhaps other birds – retrieved the food.
Perhaps the caching of meat only happens in cold weather. Perhaps, as the
steakette comes from the refrigerator, they are waiting for it to warm up, but
that would be extraordinary.
The other caching behaviour I remember was in central
Australia by an A Raven, which buried a bread scrap in a small hole and raked
loose earth on top to cover it.
