The chimney’s smoke drifts upward, moving absolutely vertical—as if by magic. High on this earthen step above the Yellowstone River, Gardiner is seldom without a breeze; this stillness is a genuine rarity. The morning walk is surreal, the atmosphere of suspended animation bringing a palpable sense of potential. Potential for what? Anything. The distant sound of a bird calling or a branch snapping can be heard for almost a mile under these conditions, as compared to mere yards on a “normal day,” and the sensitivity dial of our senses is turned all the way up to ‘high’. Our eyes scour the fields and thickets for the slightest movement amid the grass. Our ears mine the airwaves for any trace of life. Surely our own footsteps, as quiet as they may seem, are telegraphing our presence far in advance of our position, say nothing of our hushed voices. At a certain point, the chatter of magpies cuts through the quiet like ice picks in broken glass. Pausing mid-stride, we call our black Labrador, Casey, back to our side. A look of mutual recognition passes between Jenny and I in acknowledgement of something profound, but not yet understood. Magpie voices fill the void for several square miles, the magpie talk, nay, screaming, indicates something dire. This wake in the stillness of morning cannot be ignored. We turn and head in their direction.
Such group calls, where multiple birds intensely squawk in unison, are usually reserved for the presence of a bobcat, skunk, some other danger—but not this morning. We cross from the open sage-covered flats into the alders and cottonwoods in the drainage and begin to see flickers of bird movement as the volume intensifies. Casey and I lead the way as we close in on the birds and mount an embankment near a few junipers along an open wetland. I see the magpies more clearly; they are tightly grouped and their attention is focused entirely downward and in. My mind keeps saying “predator, predator,” but things just don’t add up. By this point we are within 10 yards, and any self-respecting coyote, weasel or owl would have flushed by now. But nothing appears. Other realizations emerge as we move into the middle of things: the birds are much too close to the ground, and to one another, for it to be a bobcat. Some are in the trees at no more than 8 to 9 feet above the earth, while others are on terra firma covering a diameter of no more than 12 to 15 feet wide—not a safe place to be if a weasel was around. Their calls are grating and intense, yet stationary—so it is clear that they are not following a disturbance that is ‘on the move’. Then I see it.
There is a corpse in their midst; not one that would invite a group banquet, rather—it is one of their own. It is a magpie funeral. I have walked into the scene only once before, and to be honest, I felt quite ashamed of myself for interrupting such a solemn moment (to read about this previous encounter with a magpie funeral click HERE). The feeling surfaces again. The deceased lies belly-up amid a scattering of dry leaves and grass. As the force of our presence drives the last of the mourners away, we are left alone to comprehend the gravity of the situation.
Animals recognize death. Do they perceive it in the same ways as ourselves? The answer is, “likely not,” but they do come to some kind of realization that is uniquely their own. I have watched situations in the past where bison would go out of their way for hundreds of yards, if not portions of a mile, to attend a funerary gathering around a fallen comrade in the Lamar or Hayden Valley of Yellowstone. I have watched as a mother elk frantically defended the scattered remains of her calf after a grizzly bear and her cubs ingested the balance of it. Examples from elephants, cattle, dogs, sheep, wolves, deer and more fill an ever-growing body of literature and make it clear that the passage from from life into death is something not lost upon their animal minds. Not unlike our own rituals surrounding death, these episodes can last many hours, if not days. One must also consider what losing a loved one, a flock mate or even a periodic associate means for that animal’s behavior in the weeks or years to come, if not the rest of their lives. If only we knew them better, perhaps we too could recognize the subtle shifts in their personality, the quiet ways they avoid certain settings or situations—such as we observe in our own relatives after the loss of a parent, a child or spouse. Equipped with analogous physiological, nervous system and maybe, mental and emotional centers, to our own, why wouldn’t we give non-human animals the benefit of the doubt? It begs the question: what sort of inner landscape does a bear, an orangutan, a fox, a magpie possess?
As I kneel down beside the magpie’s remains, I can see that it is an adult. The tail and body markings are full of lustrous, iridescent hues that shimmer across the dark plumes (Note: juvenile magpies can be identified by their patches of rusty, dull brown amid the iridescent head, tail and body feathers, and they do not have quite as long of tails, nor the amount of white in the wings’ flight feathers as do adults). Out of equal parts genuine appreciation and morbid curiosity, I wrap my fingers around the lifeless bird and examine it further. “What perfection,” I think, upon examining the graceful, almost mechanical, ebony feet and claws, the glossy camber of its beak and the infinitely delicate white flank feathers as they flare out along the tapering quills. The right eye is swollen. A small amount of blood can be seen around its mouth. Did it take flight in a moment of mortal danger and collide with an obstacle? Did it suffer a glancing blow from the talons of a hawk or eagle, or did it suffer at the hand, or perhaps the bullet, of man? I could take it home and perform a necropsy, but why? Have I not done similar things before? It would be a lie to say I hadn’t, but today, I almost don’t want to know. It doesn’t matter; the only thing that really matters is that this bird did matter to someone… even if they weren’t human.