The Bird Way: a new look at how birds talk, work, play, parent, and think

by Jennifer Ackerman

The magpies seem to specialize. Around 50 percent of them are pedestrian magpies—they only swoop pedestrians. Cyclist magpies swoop only cyclists. And then there are magpies that specialize in hammering posties—the postal workers on little motorbikes that go whizzing up the street, postbox to postbox. In his research, Jones found that magpies that attack cyclists will attack any cyclist. And those that attack posties will attack any postie. “We think the cyclist and postie magpies are generalizing,” says Jones. He believes it has something to do with speed. “They’ll be coming after you, and if you stop and get off the bike and walk it, they sort of look around as if to say, ‘Where is that fast thing that I was just chasing?’ ” But the pedestrian magpies attack only certain people. “That’s the other big thing we discovered,” says Jones. “These birds recognize individuals. They live in a little territory and they never leave it, so they know every human that lives around the place. They see kids growing up, and they remember them. These birds are very, very smart. They’re watching us and interpreting our behavior.” The magpies live on average for twenty years and can remember up to thirty human faces for about that long, says Jones, “so if you anger a magpie once, you’re going to get attacked again and again.”