Links: Bonus Thursday Edition

And finally: The Thieving Magpie

Keep your cookie crumbs, lady — I’m trying to complete my silverware collection.




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25 thoughts on “Links: Bonus Thursday Edition

  1. Emsthemonster March 2, 2017 / 10:11 am

    I understand now how all the teaspoons disappear from our office kitchen.

  2. Drude March 2, 2017 / 10:22 am

    the thieving magpie is not a magpie, but a hooded crow, really – thieving on the other hand is spot on. 😉

    • Not That Mike The Other Mike March 2, 2017 / 10:34 am

      Yeah, I figured it wasn’t a magpie, but I couldn’t help referencing the Rossini opera. 🙂

      • Juno March 2, 2017 / 11:49 am

        ‘Magpie’ was my favorite nickname for the late great Maggie, my little gray and white rescue cat. I also used to call her ‘La Gazza Ladra,’ just for fun–then sing her the bassoon solo.

        You can imagine her excitement.

        https://youtu.be/W0dVj-MT9y4

  3. fkaWaldenPond March 2, 2017 / 10:27 am

    That silverware collecting Magpie is awesome! On a flatware related note, a good friend back in high school nicked a utensil from Swiss Chalet on his every visit. Back then, ( I am not sure if they do now) they had their own flatware with Swiss Chalet engraved on each piece– this was the early 80’s y’all. He wanted a complete set just because. Always cracked me up.

  4. Murray C. March 2, 2017 / 10:59 am

    I love how the seal behaves toward his doppelgänger – it’s really touching. And I’ve been watching The Bronx Zoo show on Animal Planet? or maybe Nat. Geo. channel so I’ve seen a good deal of Mert – amazing what a great positive influence one bird can have.

  5. allein ? March 2, 2017 / 10:59 am

    I hope Loki’s former people are never allowed to adopt another dog. ?
    I wonder if the shelters share a “no-fly list” with other area shelters…

    • Murray C. March 2, 2017 / 11:01 am

      Had a similar thought – pretty nervy to think they could pull that off. Trouble is they can go to a pet store or find an animal in the classifieds – puppy mills of course – they should have to have a tattoo of maybe a paw with a circle and slash toilet people know they’re a bad bet as animal owners.

      • allein ? March 2, 2017 / 11:09 am

        Yeah, I know. Hopefully they’re too cheap to pay pet store/puppy mill prices?

        • Ricky's Mom March 2, 2017 / 11:42 am

          I wonder if the shelter has contacted other places to put those folks on some kind of blacklist. I would if I could. Loki, meanwhile, is precious as can be, and I’m glad he found a good home.

      • Murray C. March 2, 2017 / 11:54 am

        Oh, man, I should’ve checked auto correct – “toilet????” I mean – it’s “to let” – how embarrassing.

        • fkaWaldenPond March 2, 2017 / 12:07 pm

          Just say no to crap! (slashed toilet symbol) Or–‘No crap permitted’

          • Murray C. March 2, 2017 / 12:15 pm

            Hee, Hee!

        • Ricky's Mom March 2, 2017 / 12:31 pm

          Well, those folks *are* toilet people in my estimation.

          • Smartypants March 2, 2017 / 2:21 pm

            I agree – it’s a Freudian slip that’s right on target! No more pet adoptions for them!

            • Smartypants March 2, 2017 / 2:26 pm

              (adding)…I love the pix of Loki at home with his loving new family.

  6. Ricky's Mom March 2, 2017 / 11:50 am

    Seal of Approval approves of seal.

    • Doug March 2, 2017 / 11:59 am

      Not that SEAL, the other one

      • Emsthemonster March 2, 2017 / 12:18 pm

        I cannot remember which one was HK’s husband 🙁

  7. Emsthemonster March 2, 2017 / 4:24 pm

    In that huge armchair I could totally curl up with Loki – what a cute pup

  8. George Michael Sherry March 3, 2017 / 5:22 am

    I don’t mean to ’nuff, but I’m actually a bit worried that the seal really DOES think it’s her baby. Or A baby, anyway — she’d remember not having given birth. But do seals play with stuff like otters do? She looks rather sincere in her devotion to that toy. I’ve heard of animal mothers carrying dead infants around for awhile before eventually giving up on them, and that’s heartbreaking. Sorry, but this reminds me of that.

    I love the tattoo idea, paw with a circle and a slash — SOMEthing to keep animals out of the hands of those who aren’t fit to have one.

    The thieving bird is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. Even though it’s in Russian (or whatever) I am SURE what the people were saying. “I think it wants to come in. Open up the window again, maybe it’ll come in! It DID, it came inside.” And then it’s not quite as much fun when it takes the spoon and they can’t get it back and then they’ll NEVER get it back.

    Birds take stuff they can’t eat to build nests. Do we think this bird is going to try to build a spoon into its nest?

    • Blue Footed Booby March 3, 2017 / 8:22 am

      Crows, or at least some species, are tool users. Search youtube for “smart crow” and prepare to be amazed. You can find videos of them bending hooks into wire to retrieve food, using a jar lid to sled down a snowy roof, using cars as nutcrackers (and obeying crosswalk lights), and pranking other animals.

      So basically our spoony friend may want the spoon to decorate with, play with, or even *actually use.*

      • Murray C. March 3, 2017 / 3:03 pm

        Yes, birds like this one or magpies, which this resembles, love shiny objects. If you were to go to their nests you’d probably find it festooned with all sorts of pilfered shiny things.

        • George Michael Sherry March 4, 2017 / 4:51 am

          I knew bower birds famously decorate their … not exactly a nest, more an architectural mating display. I didn’t know about Corvidae. (I’m not trying to show off; I had to look that word up. It’s the only group name I could find that includes crows and magpies. Incidentally, Wikipedia says Corvidae is a cosmopolitan family, and when I looked THAT up, it means widespread [large range], but the usual meaning of cosmopolitan — sophisticated, cultivated — might apply to tool-using birds also.)

      • George Michael Sherry March 4, 2017 / 4:59 am

        If it DID take it as a tool, that means there’s another great video waiting out there somewhere. Someone’s sitting in an open-air cafe, the crow flies up with the spoon in its beak, uses the spoon to scoop food out of somewhere it otherwise couldn’t reach, flies off still carrying the spoon.

        I agree the smart crow videos are amazing. I saw a video once — probably this one from BBC Two’s Inside the Animal Mind https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVaITA7eBZE where a crow works a puzzle I probably couldn’t have gotten myself. And the one where they learned to use traffic as a nutcracker — but only in the crosswalk, so they could safely retrieve the nut meat when the pedestrians were crossing — is a classic. Intelligence is a continuum. We are not the only bright species on earth.

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