Country diary: How does a magpie magpie when it has no tail?

Sandy, Bedfordshire: Deprived of such a versatile appendage, this magpie looks and acts very differentlyBehind the five-barred gate of a farm field, most of a magpie was footering about, mostly in the way that magpies are wont to do. Step, stop, pick. Step, stop, peck. Cleverness glinted out of an eye that was watching us watching it. Does any bird have such intelligent awareness, so bold and yet so fearful? A few steps more. Still watching. But it did not walk quite like a magpie.The bird that had painted itself into the gateway lacked one of the characteristic features of a creature that is bookended by exaggerated proportions. This unfortunate magpie was endowed with the requisite huge, hooked beak, but - for whatever reason - it was also tailless. Shorn of half its length, a dumpy version of its former self. What difference would the lack of what was after all only a fistful of plumes, a featherweight extension, make to this bird, other than its change of appearance? Continue reading...