No Mutants Allowed

Magpies are pretty global. The sub-family anyway (they belong to the crow-family) but yeah, in Norway we have Pica pica, known as "the common magpie" or "eurasian magpie" to you non-Europeans I guess. One of my favorite birds

Heh, they look a bit different to our magpies. Smaller I think.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_magpie this? I suspected, it's not a "true" magpie, probably named so by colonists due to its resemblance, it happens a lot in zoology. Our magpies are, like I said corvids, which makes them exceptionally intelligent

Yeah, that's it. Huh, never knew that. It means the constant gang wars between gangs of crows and magpies aren't fraternal in nature.

Well, I can attest, magpies here - the corvid magpies, are also at constant odds with the crows. I wonder though, philosophically, how much of each others they recognize. Like how early hominids attacked (and ate) fellow hominids, leaving only Homo sapiens, in a kind of total war, if a magpie recognizes a crow, as similar to itself, and a close rival, kind of like racism!

Huh, maybe. What really annoys me about Australian magpies is their tendency to swoop attack during the mating period.

Gulls do that here, they are relentless when their chicks are hatched. Dumb clueless birdlings wander everywhere, and their parents follow, swoop-attacking everyone even remotely nearby... One summer I tested and developed defense strategies, such as standing my ground, and leaping up after them, that made them cautious, but also made me look insane

I tend to speed away as fast as possible. It always happens when I'm on a bike.

I guess the increased speed of your bike puts them on high alert. Most birds, especially intelligent ones, tend to know the species they co-inhabit an area with, meaning they also know and anticipate human behavior. Corvids even learn individual people, if it benefits them somehow. Just for kicks, I'll therefore sometimes say "hi" out loud to crows Cus I know they find it peculiar

Yeah I do the same, and the look at you with those intelligent eyes. But the good thing about bikes is that you can get away really, really fast.

I miss bicycling, and I'm starting to need it. I'm not a gym kind of guy, and my sitting life is starting to catch up with me (15 years of smoking weed took care of it for me, untill I recently quit), I'm gonna see this spring. There are really no good areas to bicycle here, no sidewalks or bicycle tracks, just road and sharp turns, perfect to be surprised by cars...

I don't go to the gym but green smoothies every morning, biking to places and... fencing... umm, ignore that just eat healthy, keeps me decently fit.

Damn, that's a shame. We have a botanical park nearby where I love biking. I just... love... fuck, I'm obsessed with botanical gardens and parks.

I'm gonna find a way, even if I have to just circle the neighborhood. I love bicycling, and really miss it. I'm also getting a helmet. I remember being a teen, and ditching it, cus nobody could tell me what to do. Now I think differently, the brain is too valuable to risk

Do you have any parks nearby you could ride in?

Nope, I moved to an area that is almost exclusively agricultural, very rural. I could very possibly do a long circle around the whole area, but yeah, none of it is very bicycle friendly

No forests? Just farmland? Heh, that is pretty shit.

Sure, there's lots of forest, but Norway is extremely rocky terrain. Built-up area tend to fill in any flat-ish land available. In fact, if I go to Germany or Spain or wherever, I am litterally amazed at seeing vast, flat landscapes. It is virtually non existent here, except wherever people have crammed houses and roads in. So, I'm left with finding good roads