Discussion
Why the hate?
We have two regular visitors in our garden, beautiful intelligent birds that friends keep telling me I must kill but they can't seem to justify exactly why I should other than 'Magpies - bloody vermin' or some such
They come down and eat the marrow out of the dogs bones that lie about (that's bones we buy for the dogs, not the remains of our dogs) and generally amuse themselves. Never seen them pulling the heads off song birds, torturing, or anything like that so I'm mystified why they seem to be universally hated.
Even of they did kill a song bird or two that's just nature so who am I to interfere?
So why not just live and let live?
We have two regular visitors in our garden, beautiful intelligent birds that friends keep telling me I must kill but they can't seem to justify exactly why I should other than 'Magpies - bloody vermin' or some such
They come down and eat the marrow out of the dogs bones that lie about (that's bones we buy for the dogs, not the remains of our dogs) and generally amuse themselves. Never seen them pulling the heads off song birds, torturing, or anything like that so I'm mystified why they seem to be universally hated.
Even of they did kill a song bird or two that's just nature so who am I to interfere?
So why not just live and let live?
d chavs of the bird world though.We have plenty of magpies along with other corvids. I find them fascinating to watch. I put out dog or cat biscuits which keeps them off the feeders. There behaviour can come across as being pretty brutal, certainly when they are predating young birds and eggs. Nature doesn't play by our rules and it's entirely natural behaviour. There are often higher populations of corvids where man's hand has changed the balance through either providing more food directly or indirectly by increasing garden bird numbers which they hunt there are of course other variables, but either way, magpies are very cool and actually very beautiful birds.
Skeptisk said:
Corvids are my favourite birds. Super smart and very interesting. I am also not sure why the bad rap for magpies.
They get a bad rap because quite a lot of people aren't as intelligent as they think they are, unlike the crows. I think my favourite are jays, but I do like seeing choughs when I visit west Wales and Cornwall. Would love to see a nutcracker in the UK.bigpriest said:
In 20 years I've never seen a magpie attack any other bird on the feeders or in the garden. They seem more interested in cleaning gutters. No one refer to them as Margaret Pie? 
I've never seen them actually attack an adult garden bird, although they are very alert when magpies are about. Seen them take plenty of young birds though. As for eggs, grey squirrels seem to be the worst culprit's around here, especially wood pigeon eggs.Boom78 said:
I don’t get the hate, we have quite a few pairs that come in the garden and get on well with the many other bird varieties. They’re fascinating to watch; naturally very clever, handsome and behaviourlly very different to other birds.
+1, I love to see them in the garden - a pair have been here all day, deftly eating the marrow out of the dogs bones that they can't reach, which is great to watch!And like you I've never seen them display any aggression towards other birds.
Lotobear said:
+1, I love to see them in the garden - a pair have been here all day, deftly eating the marrow out of the dogs bones that they can't reach, which is great to watch!
And like you I've never seen them display any aggression towards other birds.
It’s their behaviours that interest me more than anything, despite the cats and dog they just hop about with no s***s given. You can visibly see them working stuff out, at times we have a gang of 8+ ‘owning’ the space. I like them And like you I've never seen them display any aggression towards other birds.
Love the magpies round our way ,they are so intelligent at problem solving.
I’ll put bread out most mornings and seeds and if the bread is really stale the magpies will soak it in water and leave it for a bit and then come back,oh and I always say Morning general and salute the first one I see…
I’ll put bread out most mornings and seeds and if the bread is really stale the magpies will soak it in water and leave it for a bit and then come back,oh and I always say Morning general and salute the first one I see…
I was watching our pair this afternoon when cutting the hedges - there's a paddock over the hedge with a few sheep in, one of the mags arrogantly lands on a sheeps back and the sheep didn't even bat an eye, it stayed for a few seconds then took off again. Funny how they tolerate each other!
Our long since gone cat caught a young magpie once and there was a hell of a noise. There must have been 8 others on the roof tops squawking loudly which alerted us to its plight. When we came outside the cat let it go and it flew off. The funny thing is for the next 5 years we lived there the magpies would hassle the cat by dive bombing it.
The same cat also would catch and kill adult grey squirrels. Swift by name swift by nature.
The same cat also would catch and kill adult grey squirrels. Swift by name swift by nature.
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