My thrill of the day, if not year.

This morning I went to the neighborhood public library and came across a juvenile magpie with spanking-new plumage foraging (without much luck) around the base of a tree. When I stopped and chatted with him, he was extremely calm and approached me expectantly, winking repeatedly. When I made low-pitched chucking sounds, he responded by coming closer — ca 2 feet — and making typical magpie food-begging chirps. Not receiving the expected reward, he went back to the base of the tree, 'muttering' to himself.

I have never had such an encounter with a magpie before. They are usually extremely wary and keep their distance and make defensive noises. I can only hope this behavior on Roscoe's part gets passed on genetically.

It would be interesting to hear a translation of what he muttered. I wonder if any of his words would need to be bleeped.

Inasmuch as he was a juvenile, I suspect his 'muttering' was the equivalent of a human juvenile's muttering when expectations aren't met by an adult (who could have met them) ... which is exactly how I interpreted it.

Along those lines you might wish to check out Thomas Nagel's treatise on "What Is It Like to Be a Bat" [The Philosophical Review 1974; 83 (4): 435-450].

You mean something along the lines of, "I hope you are a new source of food that I won't have to work for."

Más or menos ... probably with a tinge of "I'm cute and deserving and I'm not seeing anything worth wasting more time on."