If there is one idea about magpies that rivals the perception of their extraordinary intelligence, it is their love of shiny things . The idea that magpies are thieves by nature, that they take any shiny object to the nest, is part of popular culture, so ingrained that we find it in sayings, operas, comics, poems and even in the Royal dictionary. Spanish Academy.
Bird similar to the raven, but smaller, with black plumage
and white, and with a longer tail, mimicking words
and usually takes small objects to the nest, especially if they are shiny.
Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy
The story of a reputation
The figure of the kleptomaniac magpie has a long history in much of European culture . Already in Greek mythology, the Piérides tried to steal the victory in a singing challenge against the muse Calliope and were transformed into magpies, for their offense.
Gioachino Rossini’s 1817 opera La urraca ladrona tells the story of a magpie who steals silver cutlery and a servant girl who is unjustly accused of the theft. And already in the 20th century, in The Adventures of Tintin , a magpie has her antagonist role as a jewel thief in the twenty-first number, The Jewels of the Castafiore , from 1963.
“It’s a magpie” or “it looks like a magpie.” Tell yourself what it is
extremely fond of collecting and saving everything he finds,
even when they are objects of little esteem.
Florilegio or Alphabetical Bouquet of sayings and idioms
Studying your kleptomania
In 2014, a group of scientists from the University of Exeter, United Kingdom, led by TV Shephard, became curious to what extent this kleptomaniac tendency was widespread in the species, and what reasons were hidden behind this annoying habit. However, when conducting a preliminary search for scientific observations on which to establish a theoretical framework from which to start working, they encountered a curious problem: there were no scientifically proven empirical observations on this behavior.
After an intense search on the internet , they only found two true accounts of magpies stealing shiny objects . The first, a £5,000 engagement ring, found in a magpie nest in 2008, had been stolen three years earlier while its owner, British Julia Boaler, was showering with the bathroom window open. The second case, a magpie from Rochdale, England, very fond of stealing coins and keys from a car garage.
For the researchers, the great difference between reputation and facts was striking, and they decided to put that fame to the test.
They carried out two studies, one in captivity, with magpies rescued from the wild—and that could not be returned—and another in the field, with wild magpies. To test the animals they used screws, small rings and flat sheets of aluminum foil . Half of the objects were left with their natural shine and the other half were painted a matte blue.
The results were surprising. Not only were magpies not unconditionally attracted to shiny objects, they ignored and even avoided both types of test objects, shiny and matte, equally . The only notable interactions the researchers observed did not happen with the appearance of the objects, but when the magpies’ food had run out. Therefore, the animals did not feel that interest because they were attractive objects for their non-existent collection, but were only investigating whether they could be eaten or not.
In fact, in the field tests, the animals experienced neophobia , that is, an aversion to objects because they are new – shiny or not. They actively avoided approaching food near objects at first, gradually losing that aversion as they became accustomed to its presence.
Always two by two, magpies,
in your merry harlequin outfit
and something malevolent and perhaps sinister
in your behavior, which mixes
the thief’s cunning
small time with habits
unhealthy from carrion birds.
Fragment of «Magpies», by José Manuel Benítez Ariza
The observation bias
Given the results of the study, it appears that the magpies’ reputation is indeed unwarranted . The desire to steal shiny things would not be, therefore, a common behavior in the species, but rather a punctual and anecdotal behavior of a specific specimen. Similarly, there are people who steal shiny things, and this does not mean that the entire human species is kleptomaniac.
What happens, then, with the infamous magpies, is a cultural generalization from anecdotal evidence ; a tendency to favor or even exaggerate the situations that apparently confirm that belief, leaving aside all those that do not, despite being extremely prevalent. This is often called a confirmation bias .
REFERENCES:
Shephard, TV et al. 2015. ‘The thieving magpie’? No evidence for attraction to shiny objects. Animal Cognition, 18(1), 393-397. DOI: 10.1007/s10071-014-0794-4
