What does a magpie do with cat poop?

Wildlife cameras are a great asset. They capture the wonders of nature without being intrusive: martens making love or a hedgehog looking for treats behind the compost bin. Of course, nature cameras also capture the less wondrous things of nature. And these are house cats that defecate in the meadow.

After all: we now have photo proof of which house tiger leaves us a gift for the trampoline almost every day. We weren’t surprised: it was the young male Jürgen*, who we suspected was as sweet as he was cunning.

_{*Name changed by editors.}

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

Martina Schybli, spokeswoman for the Swiss Ornithological Institute, has two statements about the behavior of our magpie. The first, I hope you are not at lunch: “The magpie may have wanted to eat the excrement. This has already been observed, at least in the case of dog droppings». The second statement: “As a member of the corvid family, the magpie has a certain collecting instinct. Although this is not nearly as pronounced as, for example, in the jay, it can happen that the magpie collects food or other objects. That droppings are also a part of this has already been observed, at least in dog droppings. So there is a possibility that this magpie hides the excrement in another place again».

Schybli’s theses are supported by Martin Rümmler, bird protection officer at the German Nature Protection Union, when asked: “I suspect she sees the droppings as a source of food. In the animal world, the phenomenon of coprophagy, ie the consumption of droppings, is not uncommon. Food components in the faeces are often insufficiently broken down or the excretions are enriched with valuable intestinal bacteria and their metabolites. Personally, I have never heard of crows using excrement as a food source. But it would be conceivable. Especially the corvids, to which the magpie belongs, are very curious and inventive. Maybe it’s an animal that has discovered the benefits of cat poop. It’s also conceivable that she’s just ‘playing’ with it.”

What the magpie probably isn’t using the dunghill for is to build a nest. “It’s not the right time of year for that,” explains Martina Schybli. “The nests are built in March and April.”