Does being social make you smarter? This question lies at the core of the social intelligence hypothesis, the main theme of this film and the research of behavioural ecologist Dr Lizzie Speechly. Dr Speechly has chosen some of Australia’s most notorious swooping friends, magpies, to take this hypothesis through rigorous scientific testing. Before we took on this project, we all sat down in a circle at Binkyfilms HQ and shared our own swooping magpie trauma stories. In the end we all agreed it was better to know your enemy, so we went ahead with the animation to find out how intelligent these harbingers of urban terror really are.

Dr Speechly, the narrator of this film, is a science communicator, Behavioural Ecologist and Tertiary Educator. Her research explores the link between sociality and cognition in the Western Australian magpie, specifically through the use of social network analysis and cognitive testing. And part of her research involves trapping magpies so she can study them. A humorous tale involving a trap, a small mountain of bird food and a golden retriever puppy became the animated section of the interview.