[cobirds] magpies

Hi All,

This morning as every morning I placed peanuts, corn and sunflower seeds out on my feeders.  The Clark's Nutcrackers and Black-billed Magpies are always the first to arrive. But this morning something interesting occurred. 

 

The magpies arrived in their usual flare and began calling as if there were a predator in the area.. As a handful of birds began scolding  the back yard began to fill up with almost 20 magpies.

 

I walked out to see what was going on, thinking I would see the neighborhood Cooper's Hawk or maybe even a migrating Goshawk with a magpie. I found no such thing.

 

What I did find was parts of a magpie on the ground. The wings and a few feathers on the ground where some animal had eaten a magpie.

 

The magies must have been mourning their fallen comrade.   This scolding went on for almost 10 minutes before the birds resumed feeding. Interesting enough, as the magpies were calling, the Clark's continued feeding as if nothing was going on.

 

A few years ago I did see a similar occurrence with bluejays after one of their own flew into a window and was killed.

 

Interesting huh?

 

Scott Rashid

Estes Park.