I have read that passage before, though I can’t recall when. I suggest that her writing is liberally sprinkled with the weird overstatement. She gave a talk
to COG a few years ago and this supported my impression of her analysis. I would not recommend or bother to buy her books. Maybe a few months ago there was a mention of her on this line as a “legendary ornithologist”……. Which I had a public giggle at. However
when I consider the story, I suspect it is not all that noteworthy. Magpies have regular territorial skirmishes. These are usually in flight but sometimes it gets forced to the ground and this sort of thing happens. Then they may have a situation of one bird
being attacked or beaten up by several magpies. I think it is most typical when parents are telling their young to leave and take care of themselves. The only thing unusual in this story is the number of birds involved and that they formed part of a circle.
As such it is just a quantitative difference and not such a big deal.
Philip
From: Geoffrey Dabb [
Sent: Sunday, 18 August, 2019 11:26 AM
To:
Subject: [canberrabirds] Magpie behaviour
I am looking for some background to the below passage in the introduction to Gisela Kaplan’s book on Magpies, 1st ed. It also appears in modified form in the 2nd ed, Chapter 9. It is given as
an example of an ‘apparent “rational” deliberate act in an animal’. The extract is snipped from Google books online. I am wondering if the original report was from a chatline subscriber.
