奇速英语

Science experiments don’t always go as planned, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn from them. Recently, Australian scientists learned something unexpected about magpies(喜鹊) when they tried to attach trackers(跟踪器) to them to learn more about their habits.

The birds the scientists hoped to study were Australian magpies. They’re medium-sized black and white birds from the same bird “family” as crows and bluejays. They are known to be quite clever. They live in groups of up to 12 birds and work together to defend the area they live in.

The researchers were eager to try a new tracker on the magpies. They hoped to learn more about how far the birds flew and what they did during a normal day. The scientists are concerned that magpies may have a hard time adjusting as the world warms up because of climate change. 

It’s hard to find trackers that work well with small and medium-sized birds. Either the trackers are too heavy, or don’t last long enough. The new trackers were light and could be recharged without wires while they were still on the birds. To keep the trackers on the birds without causing flying problems, the researchers developed a special harness(保护带). It was tough, so it wouldn’t come off by accident. But it had a special release controlled by magnets(磁铁). This was meant to allow the scientists to free the birds from the harnesses at a special magnetic bird feeder, without having to catch the birds again.

There was just one problem—  ▲  . The researchers placed trackers on five magpies using their special harnesses. But just ten minutes after setting up the last magpie, they noticed something unusual: an adult female magpie was helping another magpie get free from its harness. In a few hours, most of the other magpies had also been freed from their harnesses. By the third day, none of the birds had trackers anymore. “The birds outsmarted us,” said Dominique Potvin, one of the scientists.