One of the smartest birds on the planet is the Australian magpie. It has a beautiful song. It can remember up to 30 human faces.
Australians know how to be mischievous. Birds swoop down to attack those they view as a threat as an enduring tradition of an Australian childhood.
The scientists would study them. A study published last month in the journal Australian Field Ornithology showed how clever magpies are and how they help one another without any benefit to themselves.
Potvin, an animal ecologist at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia, set out to study social behavior. She and her team worked for six months to create a harness that would be unintrusive for magpies. They thought it would be difficult for the magpies to remove their harnesses.
The birds flew off after the tracking devices were attached. Everything began to fall apart.
The first tracker was off for half an hour after we put it on.
The other magpie worked at the harness with its beak while the magpie wearing the tracker remained still. Within 20 minutes, the helping magpie had found the only weak point, a single clasp, barely a millimeter long, and cut it with its beak. Dr. Potvin and her team saw different birds with different harnesses.
The scientists took a long time to get to this point. All five devices were removed within three days.
It was heartbreaking at first, but we didn't realize how special it was. We went back to the literature and asked what we missed, but there was nothing.
The only other example of altruistic rescue behavior that Dr. Potvin mentioned was when the warblers helped other birds.
The behavior of the magpies was a combination of helping but also problem solving and having a cognitive ability to solve puzzles, according to Dr. Potvin.
It's likely that they're successful in our changing environment on farms and in urban areas.
Almost all of mainland Australia is home to the large black-and-white perching songbird, the Australian magpie. It is found in parks and backyards across the country.
The average number of people who live within a magpie's territory is 30.
One of Dr. Jones's research assistants was attacked after 15 years away from one bird.
If you think it's personal, you're right, says Sean Dooley, the public affairs manager of Birdlife Australia.
If more than 30 people pass through a bird's territory, they start to stereotype people.
He said that people who look like 10-year-old boys are more likely to be swooped.
The magpies are an example of their intelligence.
He said that it is unbelievably complex with more than 300 separate elements. You have to have a big brain in order to remember and repeat that complexity.
The original study has been put on hold by Dr. Potvin and her team. They can ponder a bigger question: what else are magpies capable of?
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