Can anyone explain this strange behaviour by a magpie?
I was in London the past two days and was walking in Hyde Park. I sat down beside an ornamental pool / fountain (if it was a fountain the fountain was switched off). The pool was half-frozen over. Anyway, there was this magpie. It looked a little young. Perhaps a second brood from last year? And it kept flying from its perch to the pool and washing itself. It did this many times, with a good pause in between. There were no other magpies visible - plenty of pigeons, though - so it seems unlikely to be a mating display behaviour or a territorial thing.
Caged birds will sometimes bathe repeatedly when they haven’t had access to water for bathing in a while. Was water frozen for a few weeks and this his first chance at open water?
It probably didn’t feel it was clean enough after the first time. Maybe by jumping in repeatedly it had a better chance to get the feather lice or other parasites as they scurried around.
It might’ve been a learned behaviour, after it washed a few times it was offered food by people nearby. Some people would term this a ‘suspicion’ as there’s no definite link between the two.