Fwd: Unusual interaction between Pied Currawong and Magpie

[John Harris <>]

I understand that it is not unusual for adult birds of one species to imitate the feeding demands of another and to get fed. While we all love to report intelligent activity from birds, some birds can also be quite dumb. Their intelligence is most often observed in remarkable and seemingly innovative ways of getting food and in this case it is the Currawong being smart and the Magpie being dumb – unless of course neither are learned behaviour. Magpies are obviously programmed to put food into the open mouths of their squawking demanding young.  It is possible that Currawongs are programmed to squawk and demand food around magpies at breeding time but I suspect it is learned behaviour.

From: "David McDonald (personal)" <>
Date: Friday, 21 November 2014 9:25 am
To: chatline <>
Cc: Howard Grace <>
Subject: [canberrabirds] Fwd: Unusual interaction between Pied Currawong and Magpie

Hi there,

I saw this online and wanted to share that I observed some unusual behaviour as well.

I observed a Magpie and a Currawong together in my garden this afternoon.

I turned when I saw the currawong come down and a magpie came down making it's territorial call and the currawong was skwawking back,  The magpie walked over to the currawong, but the currawong didn't retreat, it just sort of reclined backwards and the magpie came over and stood right in front of it in sort of a dominating pose, almost standing on the currawong's feet and, again, warbled it's territorial call.  The magpie then proceeded to lie down next to the currawong and they just laid there for a while together (about 2-3 minutes) not doing anything.  Eventually this interaction ended and the currawong stood up properly and so did the magpie.  The magpie proceeded to forage away from the currawong and then the currawong followed the magpie making begging ("feed me") sounds.  There was some feeding that ensued for about a minute - the magpie feeding the currawong and then both birds flew away in opposite directions.

Strange!!!

Unusual interaction between Pied Currawong and Magpie

		Unusual interaction between Pied Currawong and Magpie Early this afternoon I was walking through the carpark between Aranda Primary School and the playing fields.
		View on bioacoustics.cse.unsw.edu.au	Preview by Yahoo

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