Caching food

["martin butterfield" <>]

We used to feed the magpies we fed at our South Bruce domicile on Generic Fritz (sorry Devon - I don't want to make the South Australian's homesick) which probably has a similar nutrional status to steakettes.  We sliced it up into strips so that it looked like worms or witchetty grubs.   Although not strictly 'caching' I noticed that the birds would usually wipe the offering several times in the dirt before consuming it.  In contrast the worms extracted from the lawn at our place in Carwoola are inhaled as soon as they are removed from the soil.

 

I wonder if there is some ingredient in these highly processed items which signals to the magpies that some minerals are needed to balance the fat content?
 

On 8/3/07, Geoffrey Dabb <> wrote:

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.