News from Sci­ence­Blogs on mag­pies and self-recognition:

Self-recognition, pre­vi­ously thought to be found only in a small num­ber of mam­mals, includ­ing humans, chimps, dol­phins and ele­phants, has now been observed in birds as well. Psy­chol­o­gists at Goethe Uni­ver­sity in Ger­many watched five mag­pies remove col­ored stick­ers from their feath­ers after view­ing their own reflec­tions in a mir­ror. Their find­ings indi­cate that self-recognition, a pre­req­ui­site for con­scious­ness, arose at least twice in evo­lu­tion­ary history.

The Mag­pie in the Mir­ror
Mag­pies Chal­lenge Bird Brain Myth
Mag­pies Rec­og­nize Themselves