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“They’ve got their full feathers, but they’re still kind of idiots. And so they are following their parents around basically going, ‘Mom, mom, mom,’ asking for food. They’re learning how to be magpies in the world,” Knight said.
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Their low-pitched chirp is often magpies warning their relatives of a nearby predator.
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“Magpies really don’t like outdoor cats, because they’re a threat. Other than that, they don’t have a lot of natural predators in the city. And so they’re not really afraid of anything.”
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Their population has also grown in urban areas in recent decades, as humans also migrate to Edmonton, Knight said.
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“Part of why they’re so strongly associated with urban and suburban areas is they’re eating garbage,” she said, adding they also eat worms and berries.
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But their recognition also makes sense, because magpies are more Albertan than people might think, she said.
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“It’s a bird Edmonton strongly identifies with,” she said.
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“They’re plucky, they’re tenacious, they’re smart. They’re resilient. They’re very family-oriented. They stand up for each other,” she said.
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She said they are monogamous creatures with a low divorce rate and elder offspring often take care of their newborn siblings.
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Although most magpies only live a couple of years and can produce up to nine babies, Knight added that they can live for 20 years in captivity.
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Unlike other birds, she said, magpies also tend to live in the same nest for years at a time.
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“The male and the female will come back to the same location every year, which is unusual in birds, to reuse nests.” They also renovate their homes, bringing in new sticks and twigs to maintain them. Some magpie nests have been found with domes above them.
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Magpies are also not scared of the winter seasons, Knight said, similar to the Albertans who live in the province’s north.
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“We don’t have a lot of bird species that stick it out here year-round, and I think people identify with that resilience.”
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It’s tough to say whether Edmonton is the “magpie capital,” as some have called the city, Knight said. There are other places in Western Canada and in western American states with large magpie populations.
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Jalkanen said magpies were the first things she noticed when she moved to Alberta nearly four decades ago.
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“When I saw my first magpie here in Edmonton, I said, ‘Oh, what a beautiful bird.’ And the person I was with said, ‘We don’t like those.’ I still disagree with that. They’re a beautiful bird, and they’re given a really hard time for no real reason,” she said.
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“It just makes sense to treat them nicely and respectfully. And they will do the same to you.”
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