What does a magpie do with cat poop?

Wildlife cameras are an amazing thing. They capture the wonders of nature without being invasive: martens making love or a hedgehog looking for treats behind the compost bin. Of course, wildlife cameras also record the less beautiful things in nature. And these are house cats pooping on the lawn.

At least: we now have photo evidence of which house cat leaves a gift for the trampoline almost every day. We were not surprised: it was the young cat Jürgen*, who we suspected and who was as sweet as he was cunning.

_{*Name changed by the editor.}

However, we were a little more surprised when we watched the videos from the morning after. A thieving magpie (Pica pica) pounces on the crowd, snatches a proud piece with its beak and runs off. What the magpie does with Jürgen’s piece of feces is beyond the focal length of our camera – and therefore beyond our knowledge. We are amazed. After all, we thought that magpies are mainly interested in the beautiful and sparkling things in life. What is this behavior about?

Martina Schybli, press spokesperson for the Swiss Bird Observatory, has two statements about the behavior of our magpie. First of all, I hope you’re not having lunch: “The magpie probably wanted to eat the feces. This has certainly been observed with dog feces. The second statement: “As a member of the corvid family, the magpie has a certain collecting instinct. This is not nearly as pronounced as, for example, the jay, but it can happen that the magpie collects food or other objects. That this also includes excretions has been observed before, at least with dog feces. So there is a possibility that this magpie collects the feces on hides another place.”

Schybli’s statements are supported upon request by Martin Rümmler, bird protection officer at the German Nature Conservation Association: “My assumption is that she sees feces as a source of food. The phenomenon of coprophagy, i.e. eating feces, is not uncommon in the animal world. Food components in the feces are often insufficiently digested or the excretions are enriched with valuable intestinal bacteria and their metabolites. Personally, I have never heard of crows specifically using feces as a food source. But it would be conceivable. The corvids, including the magpie, are very curious and inventive. Perhaps it is an animal that has discovered the benefits of cat poop. It is also conceivable that she is just ‘playing’ with it.

What the magpie probably doesn’t use the feces for: building a nest. “It’s not the right time of year for that,” explains Martina Schybli. “The nests are built in March and April.”