Proving yet again that magpies are a lot smarter than us, a handful of the native birds have outsmarted researchers from two Australian universities by pulling tracking devices off each other.
The five magpies, species Gymnorhina tibicen, were the subject of a Global Positioning System tracking experiment by academics Joel Crampton, Celine Frère and Dominique A Potvin. The scientists attached the devices, which looked like tiny backpacks, to try and study the birds’ movements as they navigate challenges like urbanisation and climate change. The packs weighed one gram.
The researchers from The University of Queensland and the University of the Sunshine Coast were shocked when within ten minutes of fitting the final tracker, they saw an adult female magpie without a tracker working with her bill to try and remove the harness from a younger bird.
“When they started pecking at it, we were still a little bit cocky. We didn’t think they were going to figure it out,” lead author Dr Potvin told Nine Entertainment.
“Within hours, most of the other trackers had been removed. By day three, even the dominant male of the group had its tracker successfully dismantled.”
She added the “tenacious” magpies found the tracking device’s sole weak spot – a one-millimetre section – and prised it free. The researchers watched in awe as their expensive equipment fell from a branch high in the trees, she said.
“That’s when all of our faces dropped and we just looked at each other and thought, ‘Oh no, this is all over’,” she said.
The research, or lack of, was published in Australian Field Ornithology.
Another sign that magpies have adapted a little too well to the challenges to their habitat posed by humans.
