A tripod with a video camera on a stair landing, while packing for a family holiday earlier this month was a bit in the way, it has to be said. Capturing video footage was a distraction to the job in hand too, but the amusing view out of the stair window kept catching my attention.
The rain was heavy (much heavier than the video below has shown) and a soaking wet, young Magpie was clearly showing why this corvid species are regarded as highly intelligent birds. It found my neighbour’s warm, central heating vent tucked under the overhanging house eaves and sheltered out of the rain!
This young Magpie was perched here for some time, only moving when my movement past the window going up/down the stairs caught its attention. It would always return though. So who was actually watching who then? The Magpie won that… I had a packing to do after all and gardenwatching wasn’t on my long to-do list with too little time to do it in 😉
2x clips, 57 secs, no background music, note the closing eyelids of this bird.
This post was published by Shirley for shirls gardenwatch in May 2015.
Very intelligent birds.
They are smart birds – they often soften hard bread found in other gardens in our bird bath but I draw the line when they try the same thing with a chicken leg
Such a handsome bird too.
We see them doing the exact same. They don't take long to learn, do they?
Good photo's … thanks.
All the best Jan
Hello everyone, sorry for delay in replies – I’ve been enjoying a summer of getting the garden into check. Thanks for all your comments 🙂
John, they certainly are!
Sue, interesting, I’ll look out for the bread trick but I’d not be too keen on chicken legs either 🙂
Lisa, absolutely, often you need to take photos and video before you realise how handsome many birds actually are especially ones with dull colouring 🙂
Angie, I guess it should be no surprise that this is a common sighting (seen again last week during heavy rain). They absolutely don’t take long to learn and sit up high on branch perches watching where the smaller birds go to 🙂
Jan, thanks, taking video frame captures is a great wait to get images 🙂