Maggie, Billy Bob and "Junior"

I hadn't really thought about it much, but we haven't seen Maggie and Billy Bob here together for a while. Seperately, yes, but not together - and mostly it's been Billy Bob. The reason? Ah... breeding season. Yes, our magpies have a youngster - "Junior".

Junior is out of the nest now and able to fly quite well. He's sticking pretty close to his mum, loudly whining and begging for food. Here she is feeding him:

There's a certain behaviour I've seen them engaging in - it's really strange. Junior gets over next to his mum and then rolls over onto his back, wiggling his feet in the air and calling out. I finally got a couple of photos of this.  They're not the best quality (I was shooting from quite a distance) but you can see in this one (below) Maggie standing over Junior, who is on his back (the white you see is the underside of his tail).

(Doubleclick these photos to see larger images)

In this next photo (below), Maggie seems to be pecking and prodding at Junior. I'm not sure if she's trying to get him up, or if she's going after some kind of parasite (possibly a leech)?

Here she is standing over him, and rolling him onto his side (he wasn't cooperating, just flopped there like a sack, with her tugging at him).

Finally he's rolling back onto his feet, with Maggie apparently grabbing at his legs from the right hand side.

What are they actually doing? Your guess is as good as mine.

I've seen both parents nudging and pecking at Junior - sometimes one or the other, sometimes together. Maybe they are removing parasites, but it actually looks more like Junior is throwing some kind of temper-tantrum and they're just trying to get him to stop it.