In early summer of 2011 I saw something quite spectacular which I still don't fully understand. An epic mass battle taking place between magpies and jackdaws which covered an entire hillside from about 500-1500 feet.
The first hint at what was to come was two magpies chasing a jackdaw low over a gorse thicket. They were wonderfully aerobatic, making many small wing adjustments at speed to evade and persue amongst the tops of the gorse. This made me look up and there it was; More magpies than I have ever seen in one place, locked in battle with what must have been every single jackdaw from the roost about a mile away.
The scale was staggering. From the immediate foreground to the sky above the peak small groups of both species were having at each other. In some places the jackdaws were mobbing a maggie or two and in others the magpies had the upper hand. I didn't see anybody getting seriously hurt but the fighting was some very heated, beak and claw stuff. It's impossible to say how many birds were involved, but at a guess I'd say it was around the 100 mark. This gang fighting behavior struck me as being all too human.
I've never seen so many maggies together like that and I wonder how they knew it was time to band together. I reckon it was territorial but that just raises questions about the usual co-existence and why all those magpies wanted the ground which might usually hold one or two mating pairs.
Has anyone else seen a spectacle like this?
The first hint at what was to come was two magpies chasing a jackdaw low over a gorse thicket. They were wonderfully aerobatic, making many small wing adjustments at speed to evade and persue amongst the tops of the gorse. This made me look up and there it was; More magpies than I have ever seen in one place, locked in battle with what must have been every single jackdaw from the roost about a mile away.
The scale was staggering. From the immediate foreground to the sky above the peak small groups of both species were having at each other. In some places the jackdaws were mobbing a maggie or two and in others the magpies had the upper hand. I didn't see anybody getting seriously hurt but the fighting was some very heated, beak and claw stuff. It's impossible to say how many birds were involved, but at a guess I'd say it was around the 100 mark. This gang fighting behavior struck me as being all too human.
I've never seen so many maggies together like that and I wonder how they knew it was time to band together. I reckon it was territorial but that just raises questions about the usual co-existence and why all those magpies wanted the ground which might usually hold one or two mating pairs.
Has anyone else seen a spectacle like this?