The "Thieving Magpie" Not Quite
A Moment of Science

The "Thieving Magpie" Not Quite

B2Upper-intermediateNovember 11, 20262 min
  • Science

The "Thieving Magpie" Not Quite

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Sentence 6 of 12 · 0:20

You have nothing to worry about. It turns out that crows don't really like to take

.

trinkets and hoard them in their nests.

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B2

B2 · Upper-intermediate

Comfortable if you already follow TV news

A1 28%A2 44%B1 24%B2 4%C1 0%
  • 96% of the words are B1 or easier.
  • 163 words a minute: natural, fairly fast speech.
  • 9 harder words (B2 and up) in the whole episode.

Transcript

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0:00

I like that ring, Yael. Is it new? It is. And I'm lucky it's still on my finger. There were a lot of crows in the parking lot this morning as I walked to work, and I was worried one of them would try to steal it from me.

0:16

You have nothing to worry about. It turns out that crows don't really like to take shiny objects. It's just an old belief that crows and their cousin the magpie steal trinkets and hoard them in their nests. Really? But I could have sworn I'd heard stories of birds taking watches or car keys.

0:33

And some birds do. In one study done at the University of Exeter, though, researchers put food and various odds and ends in front of pairs of magpies. If the birds had liked shiny things, those objects, blue and silver rings and screws, and aluminum foil, would have been pretty attractive. Instead, the magpies mostly ignored

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