Magpies

[Globalti]

Not magpies but rooks: in his book King Solomon's Ring the anthropologist and behaviourist Konrad Lorenz describes walking home from a swim one day with his wet black shiny swimming costume held loosely in his hand, when he is suddenly attacked by rooks from a nearby rookery. He realises afterwards that the attack happened because the rooks thought he was carrying one of them dead in his hand.

 

[Crackle]

We've got some living by us, fat, ugly, noisy birds. I think there's a couple of Magpies nearby too.

 

[Arjimlad]

Timely thread this, I just saw a magpie holding a squealing sparrow down trying to kill it.

I've never seen this before. It looked like an adult sparrow. The magpie was being mobbed by a gull and a crow as it did this. It flew off carrying the sparrow, into some bushes.

Magpies can & will observe the location of accessible nests and kill the chicks or eat the eggs. Nature is red in tooth & claw and I am not saying that there was anything wrong with what they do. I shoot them whenever I can though, to try to help other birds fledge their broods.

 

[Arch]

Timely thread this, I just saw a magpie holding a squealing sparrow down trying to kill it.

I've never seen this before. It looked like an adult sparrow. The magpie was being mobbed by a gull and a crow as it did this. It flew off carrying the sparrow, into some bushes.

Magpies can & will observe the location of accessible nests and kill the chicks or eat the eggs. Nature is red in tooth & claw and I am not saying that there was anything wrong with what they do. I shoot them whenever I can though, to try to help other birds fledge their broods.

What about the magpies fledging their broods?

Nature's nature.

 

[Arjimlad]

What about the magpies fledging their broods?

Nature's nature.

I agree, but I'm not going to eliminate them all even were I to try, and there are more than enough of them about. Just doing my bit for our songbirds.

 

[slowwww]

Can't stand them. We moved house 2 years ago and now have a large secluded garden and was delighted with the diversity of birds there initially, not just your usual robins, tits, blackbirds, sparrows, thrushes, but also green woodpeckers, tree creepers, redstarts etc. We quickly started spending a fortune on food for them.

Last year a family of 6 Magpies muscled in and now we only see robins, tits and occasional blackbird, and what's worse, the feckers roost on the roof above our bedroom and commence their horrible clattering squawks shortly after dawn each day.

We've currently got our cat on anabolic steroids in the hope he'll see them off!

 

[Leodis]

Horrid birds, they let out a call and the rest sometimes dozens come from all over, they are the raptures of the bird world. We used to have blackbirds nesting near us, I used to love watching them whilst having a smoke, now the buggers have taken over. You should see them if a Jay comes within 100 yards of their nest!!

 

[Cycling Naturalist]

Timely thread this, I just saw a magpie holding a squealing sparrow down trying to kill it.

I've never seen this before. It looked like an adult sparrow. The magpie was being mobbed by a gull and a crow as it did this. It flew off carrying the sparrow, into some bushes.

Magpies can & will observe the location of accessible nests and kill the chicks or eat the eggs. Nature is red in tooth & claw and I am not saying that there was anything wrong with what they do. I shoot them whenever I can though, to try to help other birds fledge their broods.

The noting of accessible nests and considerable agility in getting into hedges and bushes does make them very destructive of other birds. I know of someone who tried to create a veritable bird reserve with an acre or so of garden in rural Shropshire. Vast efforts were made with plantings and careful feeding strategies. This attracted birds, but it also upped the population of magpies. The problem is that as magpies are omnivorous, the normal prey/predator ratio does not apply. Once they've wiped out a hedge full of nests, they will quite happily go and eat something else. In this particular case, trapping was used, and 14 magpies caught in a year. The following year, the garden was full of breeding birds.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

What happens to these trapped magpies?

 

[4F]

What happens to these trapped magpies?

 

[threebikesmcginty]

 

[Arch]

We used to have blackbirds nesting near us, I used to love watching them whilst having a smoke

Smoking is bad for the health, you should discourage the blackbirds from doing it....

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

D829 Magpie

 

[Melonfish]

maggies are vermin and when they claim territory they actively destroy other birds' nests for food. shoo em off.

 

[Cycling Naturalist]

What happens to these trapped magpies?

I've no doubt that they are released in areas where there is a shortage.