Magpie behaviour (1 Viewer)

Some time back I was on a street in Glasgow and I saw a rat running along the gutter beside the kerb. As I watched a magpie came down, grabbed the rat and flew up, perhaps twenty feet in the air, before dropping the rat to kill it.
Has anyone ever noticed similar behaviour in magpies?

Magpies are corvids and other members of that group have been seen doing some pretty amazing things. Crows dropping nuts in front of traffic on zebra crossings, waiting for the lights to go red and eating the now opened nuts (I think thats a BBC Attenborough moment). I've seen magpies doing things with rubbish which was interesting, and have seen them colluding in groups suspiciously. I have not seen them do what you describe, and I think its fascinating.

Magpies eh...