Why do magpies harass cats and do they retaliate?

Why do magpies harass cats? And why don’t the harassed cats retaliate by attacking the magpies (sometimes they do – see video below)? I am seeing videos of magpies, sometimes a single magpie or a couple, attacking a passive, sleepy cats in back garden and backyards. In the videos that I’ve watched the cat does nothing about it. We are told by ornithologists that domestic cats are wiping out the bird population, so what is going on?

The first point is that magpies harass, annoy and peck at cats because it’s the nesting season and they are attacking predators which may take their young. I guess it’s a sort of proactive, defensive measure against predators to tell them to bugger off. Magpies breed in early April in the UK I am told. You won’t see this form of magpie behavior at other times. Wrong? Please tell me in a comment.

Non-retaliation by the magpie-pecked cats?

A Google search does not provide me with an answer to the question as to why the cats often don’t attack the magpies. When you watch the videos, you will notice that the magpies are very cautious about harassing the cats. They approach them sideways so they can jump away very quickly. And they dart in and out. They keep a decent distance between themselves and the cat for self-preservation. They are fully aware of the danger of what they’re doing. They are hard to catch.

RELATED: Two Little Known Facts About Cats Preying on Birds

I think the point to be made is that the cats do attack magpies sometimes but it’s difficult which puts them off trying. I’ve seen a rather poor-quality video of a magpie harassing a cat. The bird flies off, the cat leaps into the air to grab it. So, it is not one-way traffic in the magpie-to-cat harassing and attacking relationship. I have found the video (see it here also – it’s a Reddit.com posting)

 
My guess for the reason why cats, in general, don’t give the magpies a smack with their paws when they are harassed is because the magpies are too smart. They’ve probably learned that they are wasting their time trying to get them unless they use a lot of effort with little reward. As I said, magpies harass cats in a very smart and defensive way. The cats have learned to not bother to fight back because it’s a waste of energy.

It is probable that magpies are smarter than domestic cats. In a game of wits which is part of the process of magpie harassment, the magpie outsmarts the cat. The cat becomes passive but annoyed as a result. This must lead occasionally to a darting attack by the cat on the magpie.

P.S. I have seen exactly the same interaction between a magpie and a resting fox. Same reasons I guess too.

SOME ARTICLES ON CAT PREDATION OF BIRDS: https://pictures-of-cats.org/tag/cats-preying-on-birds

Crows

You might know that magpies are a member of the crow family of which there are 133 species including ravens, rooks and of course magpies. And, today, in The Times, we have an interesting article about “Crows are murder in road where angry birds attack”. That’s the title and it’s a reference to a story from a tree-lined street in Dulwich, south London.

In the trees the crows are nesting and Ajax Murrell was walking along the road where she lives one morning when she heard a strange rustling in the trees according to this report.

The next thing she is being attacked by a crow and she had to run away to escape it. She suffered a barrage of pecks and clawing. She was shocked and left with a bloodied scalp and deep scratches on her hands.

She isn’t the only one to have fallen prey to attacks by crows that roost in the trees. Over the past few months there have been regular attacks. The victims have included children, cyclists and young mothers.

A woman with a pushchair had to flee from a crow after it repeatedly divebombed her. Residents in the area are considering taking umbrellas when they walking down Townley Road to protect themselves.

Mark Avery, a former conservation director of the RSPB, said that it was unusual because crows are normally wary or frightened of humans. Of course, they are very intelligent and it wouldn’t be unusual for crows to be scared of humans because it’s been found in a couple of studies that wild animals generally are fearful of the human voice.

It transpired that around two months ago the crows in that road were in a state of agitation. They were screaming and circling in the sky after a member of the group had fallen from their nest onto the road and killed by a car.

It seems that the remaining crows are attacking people because they perceive them as hostile to their group members.

And it’s been found in studies that mated pairs of crows share territories with their grown children and older offspring help their parents to raise each season’s new brood of young birds. This is an extended family.

And it has been found in another study that crows remember those that are hostile to them through generations.

The study took place in Washington at the University of Washington. In the experiment, students put on masks and captured and caged crows which lived in the trees on campus. They then released them and thereafter the crows would ignore the students when they walked past without masks. But those that wore the same masks were attacked.

And importantly, long after the original group of captured birds had died, their descendants attacked the mask-wearing researchers for years into the future.

So this memory is handed down in the DNA of offspring.