Now this is interesting behavior. I’ve seen it a couple of times now, and while this isn’t an interesting photo in and of itself, it might be interesting scientifically. Those are three magpies all walking around on the elk, picking at–not sure what. Various parasites? Hard to believe parasites can live at this altitude, but I imagine they do on the nice warm blood of elks.
So is their a communal relationship between magpies and elks? I’ve not seen behavior like this outside of Africa. Fascinating. I really need to see if anyone’s done a paper about this.
