Magpies have a terribly bad rep, associated as they are with all sorts of ill luck, superstitions, and omens.
One of the pervading myths that surrounds them is that they have a penchant for shiny things and will steal your jewellery, cutlery, and even your money. The notion is so engrained that we even describe people who collect and hoard things, particularly objects and trinkets with little value, as magpies.
Despite the widespread belief of this behaviour there is actually little empirical evidence to show that magpies are attracted to shiny objects any more than any other bird. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that suggests magpies are attracted to sparkly things but as we all know, the plural of anecdote is not data.*
In 2007 a magpie hit the headlines when it spent a week at a garage in Rochdale snatching small tools, loose change, and even car keys, while in 2008 a platinum engagement ring was retrieved from a magpie’s nest that had disappeared 3 years earlier.
And in 2019 a lumberjack working at the Château de Versailles discovered a treasure trove of over 1,000 coins in a magpie’s nest that it had taken from the fountains in the palace gardens.
But there isn’t the abundance of stories that one would expect about a bird with such a poor reputation.
In 2014 a team of scientists from the Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour (CRAB) decided to investigate. To test the theory the researchers from Exeter University placed a pile of nuts 30cm away from a pile of shiny items such as screws, rings, and pieces of aluminium foil and another pile of nuts near a similar pile of shiny items that they had sprayed with matte blue paint.
After control tests had been carried out the scientists observed the magpies to see which objects they were most attracted to. In 64 tests magpies only picked up a shiny object twice. Both times a silver ring was picked up but immediately discarded. In fact, the birds avoided both the shiny objects and the blue objects often displaying signs of nervousness and feeding less when they were nearby.
The team were unable to find any evidence that magpies were attracted to shiny things and the objects actually appeared to prompt responses of neophobia, the fear of new things.
They suggested that the reason we associate magpies with such kleptomania is that when they do occasionally pick up shiny objects we tend to notice it more compared to when they take less interesting things. The myth may therefore have resulted from observation bias and the fact that when we do see a magpie stealing something sparkly we are more likely to tell other people.
Magpies, however, are intelligent birds and are capable of sophisticated mental tasks such as remembering where they have hoarded food. They are also very inquisitive birds, and in the past when people kept magpies as pets there would have been many opportunities for them to take valuable objects.
In 1815 two French playwrights Théodore Baudouin d’Aubigny and Louis-Charles Caigniez, wrote La Pie voleuse ou la Servante de Palaiseau, a 3-act melodrama in which a servant is sentenced to death for stealing silverware from her master. It is only later that it is discovered that the real culprit is his pet magpie.
In 1817 the Italian composer Gioachino Rossini based his opera La gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie) on the story and this, it seems, sealed the magpie’s fate as a jewel thief.
* Did you know this aphorism is actually a misquote? The original, attributed to the political scientist Ray Wolfinger, was actually ‘the plural of anecdote is data’. For some reason it has morphed into the complete opposite.
10 Responses
We had a magpie tapping on window trying to get a small round shiny silver compass that was catching the sun light. Definitely wanted it. Bless them.
I’ve just had things stolen from my fairy garden by magpies. Yesterday they took some pebbles & shells. Today they chucked alot of earth out of a big basin pot I have a fairy garden in. They took a well, 3 hedgehogs & 4 mushrooms. Broke the wings off a fairy. I will have to move everything inside a shed now as this has been 2 days running so I think they will be back for more. They usually stay in the trees & occasionally hop about on the lawn but they venture onto the patio now for treasures.
I lost my car ignition key once, I believe I dropped it somewhere. From the back of my house there is a path I use everyday to get fuel for my stove. I searched everywhere for the key, inside the house, and including the back path outside, but couldn’t find it and had to use the spare. About two months later I was on my way along the back path to get fuel when there it was, right in the middle of the path, where I’d walked dozens and dozens of times. It was slightly rusty. I believe a bird, probably a jackdaw, had found it, picked it up then dropped it on the path. There are lots of jackdaws in my garden and I have seen them pick up massive things, mainly wood.
I love our magpie! It’s been visiting us for several years, originally always with another magpie but for the last 3 years it is alone. It has a stick leg! One of its legs was so damaged that it appears to be exactly as if it has a wooden leg. (We call it Smith). It’s such a feisty, competent, unselfconscious creature. It’s been an inspiration since I got my osteoarthritic hip and find myself hobbling and hopping around.
We have had six Magpies keep coming into
our garden on the garden furniture
Jumping from one chair to another,
Some of them look through the patio windows.
I think they are a delightful bird and nice to
Observe.
Two days ago i was working on my old Trolley Jack, replacing seals and Oil, so i had a load of tool’s lying around me as i was in my garden … Had three visitors just jumping around and seemed to be watching what i was doing, i even spoke to them saying hello mate and how ya doing, then after a dozen or so visits one of these Magpie’s started getting very close to me and rather bold …. he/she was rather interested in a screw driver lying on the floor it pecked at it and rolled it a bit, then they disappeared for about 20 minutes, then 2 returned and the bold one sat on my boot watching me he/she then jumped down and started pecking a 21mm 1/2″ socket, now this isn’t a small socket but not huge …. he/she managed to pick it up and to my amazement flew off with it. didn’t even seem to struggle with it either, so i dont know if this is supposed to be a myth but he/she disappeared over the roof tops with it and i never got it back.
What a sweet story, even if it did cost you a wrench
My wife had a valuable watch stolen from our back garden. It had a six foot wall around it and she had taken the watch off while gardening. Although we cannot be certain that it was a Magpie we can be certain that it was a bird who took it. We lived in suburban South London.
I have coloured and shiny crystals that I keep on my windowledge (inside) and am often woken up to the sound of the magpie pecking at my window and hopping up and down the length of the winowsill, as if annoyed that he can’t get at them. It is the baby magpie that seems most hypnotized by them.
You cannot be “certain” unless you have video footage of a bird taking it.
It’s usually someone you know and trust.