I sat and watched a group of 6 black-billed magpie's yesterday collecting rocks. They would come in from across a field and land on an old section of gravel logging road then pick through the gravel until they had a beak-full of ~1/2" rocks, then off they would go only to return 5 minutes later and start again. I know other corvids like to collect things, but I would have thought that it was a spring / nesting behaviour and it seemed strange that there were 6 of them at it. Any idea on what this behaviour is about?
Hi Jeff, and a big welcome to BPN! I agree this is a curious behaviour at this time of year. I'm wondering though whether the items they were finding were actually food items of some sort? Corvids (crows et al.) including of course European and NA magpies cache food so this would explain why they went back and forth. Anyway just a thought.
Magpies Collecting Rocks?
Reply With Quote
