I have a fair number of the noisy fearless swine in my vicinity - and my one year old kitten is intent on sourcing their young.
This of course is leading to much frivolity and fracas - dive bombing, low swooping and violent attempts to see her off.
I've tried to scare them away - my kitten is fearless herself - and will, im sure learn the hard way......
What can be done - I fire a BB Pistol from time to time if it gets very ugly - this seems the only way to seriously move them on
Farmers are known to shoot them - are they classed as vermin?
I do not wish to kill - it's not a thread for that - more - what can I do to balance out the odds for both parties - it's comical, fascinating, yet worrying to watch at times - nature is a wonderful thing!
I find it difficult to put into words how much I despise this variant of Corvid. Two windowsills on our house have been completely destroyed by magpies, not sure whether they were attacking it to get at insects beneath, or ripping the fibres of the wood to line their nests. Either way, £xxx of damage done and I've never wanted to own an air rifle more.
G
Our recently deceased cat had a thing for them also, always getting into fights with them & the same group dive bombing you describe. We were always worried he was going to lose an eye from the fighting.
I came home one afternoon to find him on the drive, up on his hind legs, swiping at the magpie that was hopping about injured like some strange MMA event between them, even a neighbour stopped to watch.
Not sure if the magpies all group together in these instances, but seemed to always be a large group squawking and swooping whenever he was on attack mode.
Never did find a solution. To be fair the number of birds of prey in the area & him having been a tiny adult cat were by far our biggest fears of him being taken.
Good luck with finding a solution, but don’t think there is an easy one really.
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I like them myself. They are one of the more "confident" of the birds in urban areas, but, without sounding too hippy-ish, they are just another part of nature.
They lived in the areas we now live in long before we moved in, flattened the trees and put up concrete buildings. Lots of animals lived in these areas, but Magpies are just one of the more resourceful animals that were able to adapt.
Without them, the lack of ecological diversity would be even worse.
Fact is, most countries are in danger of becoming ecological deserts. Even in areas where we see mountains and fields, these are primarily areas for farm animals and the diversity that once existed is no longer there. Its easy to be annoyed at a species thats very visible but they are a link in a chain that will eventually break and we will end up suffering. visible example is if the bees decline enough, we will have serious problems and its a problem all of our own making.
Shoot them, bloody things wreak havoc with song bird eggs/young
Very intelligent birds (like all Corvids) and with a beautiful iridescent plumage.
Love them.
Smartest birds in the UK and one of the few creatures apart from us that are, to some degree, self aware.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2517622/
Which perhaps throws up a moral issue or two...
I love them but can see why others aren’t so keen .
Love them.I watch them distract the seagull parents while one of their mates tries to rob the nest lol...proper teamwork and as said already very intelligent.
Once had a young one in the garden with a bald head, looked like a little vulture, daughter called it scragger.
Vanished for a few days, then I heard a noise in the chimney, I removed the fireplace and low and behold it was Scragger that had fallen down the chimney.
It bit me and then flew out the window and I had to pay £50 to reconnect the gas fire!!
NUFC is great but they really need to get a new owner.
J
It's just nature. I really admire magpies. I like wasps as well.Originally Posted by seadog1408
And badgers bite your leg until they hear the bone snap, so you must carry a dry stick to break when walking at night!
Magpies have always predated on smaller birds, but it never seems to have caused an issue until recently, when we removed all the woods. Anyway, studies have shown that even with the increase in Magpies, there has been no obvious indication this has had an effect on songbird numbers.
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150...-about-magpies
They were eating a parakeet in my garden yesterday!
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Each to their own, I wouldn't believe a word that comes from the biased broadcasting company or Chris packam.
They are not Kosher
I FEEL LIKE I'M DIAGONALLY PARKED IN A PARALLEL UNIVERSE
During my teens and twenties I shot countless corvids. Then I took pity on a fledgling jackdaw that was being mauled by a cat, and rescued it on the basis that I disliked cats even more than crows. Nursed it back to health, including veterinary treatment, by which time it was too tame to release. So she stayed with me for a few years and then got rehomed to a friend she was also friendly with when I relocated abroad and couldn’t get past the red tape to bring her with me.
I know not everyone likes them but I’d never kill a corvid now.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
Beautiful birds. I can't relate to anybody who would want to kill one, or anything else for that matter.
I believe you are allowed to trap them and release them somewhere else. Rules are quite strict but I don’t think you need a license. https://www.gwct.org.uk/advisory/gui...land-scotland/
Not everybody wants to be vegan.
Years ago when I was working, I had quite a few invites to pheasant shoots but the moral get out was that most pheasants got past the guns and the ones that did get shot were eaten.
Magpies are totally horrid but they are only doing what nature wants them to do.
And if humans want to kill magpies to protect songbirds, isn't that also just nature? Me, I like the songbird more so I'll act accordingly. That's my nature.
Magpies are native to the UK and the wilderness belongs to them. Domesticated cats are not.
Never used to like them due to them attacking other smaller birds, especially the young.
Having said that more recently I grew quite fond of them as they used to squawk loudly if they saw a fox near my chicken run.
Haven’t had any dislike for them since.
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“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!....."
Humans are vastly more intelligent and can make decisions on many higher levels.
Magpies don't kill songbirds cause they like or hate them, they kill them cause it's a food source. There's nothing sinister in it
You kill magpies because you dislike them and have a different view of songbirds. You don't use the magpie you kill for sustenance you just leave it there to rot.
Its pretty awful "nature" If you insist on calling it that.
Last edited by Wilson_smyth; 29th July 2019 at 22:00.
translation please?
I'm pretty sure it's nurture not nature. Generally, if it's carried on language that's a big fat clue as to the source...
And magpies have been getting stick for a very long time for slightly dodgier reasons. Have a song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...&v=pvy9TDUIvyU
The subject came up almost 4 years ago with many of the same observations made, both for and against terminating the magpies.
My response at that time was that I find them a real nuisance, they are incredibly noisy and I believe they do have a noticeable impact on common garden bird populations and once the Magpies have been 'removed' the garden birds returned and their song could be heard again.
You can't prove that the magpie kills for food as a necessity rather than just because it chooses to instead of just going for snails. Maybe it just gets its rocks off, you can't prove either way. Or are there no other food sources available so rooks really must peck out lambs eyes? In a way its like the argument for going vegan. We can survive without using or eating any animal products, but we eat steak and wear leather shoes anyway.
And FYI, I love a bit of rook pie :) lovely stuff.
So are rats, cockroaches, and mosquitoes.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
Rather see a magpie in the garden than a bl@@dy cat.
Magpie, crow, rook, raven, blackbird, same difference..
Fas est ab hoste doceri
I rather think that the point is that what it kills it eats. There are very few creatures that kill just for the hell of it and show no interest in trying to eat what they have killed. Magpies are smart, but I don't think they are up to deciding to go vegan as a moral choice.
I think the point is that we don't live in a truly 'wild' environment in the UK. It has been managed by man for farming and residential areas mainly, and this can benefit some species more than others. If some predators become too numerous it is to the detriment of other species, so man has culled them in the past to help redress the balance. There is an argument to let the 'best man win', but if all you want to see in the countryside is corvids, mink and a few other top predators thats fine. A lot of those living in urban areas probably wouldn't give it a thought anyway.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
A magpie is a songbird.
An elderly gent in my rifle club (he's 80+) has made it his life's work to rid the planet (well, his garden anyway) of magpies.
He has a built a hide in the garden, puts out decoys and sits all day waiting to shoot them.
Not sure what they ever did to him, as he's an otherwise very quiet, unassuming man. Just hates magpies.
We have a family of seven of the damn things near us. 9:30 each night they start up screeching for a good 30mins. The they start again at 4:30 for half an hour (it was 4 but it's getting darker in the am now). Plus they kill the other chicks. Not a myth.... we've seen them completely decimate the nests of other birds. The smaller birds have got a hard enough life coping with things like habitat, domestic cats, etc....
Have a fair few in my garden and whenever the noise gets up or a drama is ensuing, my ginger Tom is normally the root cause.
Shot many in my younger days but I have grown to like them and respect their intelligence, tenacity and teamwork. I also think they are strikingly beautiful.
We have attracted a variety of birds in our garden with various feeders... Magpies, Robins, Blackbirds (had the same pair back 4 years in a row now), Common Woodpeckers, Tits. They all seem to get along together.
I feed the pigeons, I sometimes feed the sparrows too
It gives me a sense of enormous well-being
And then I'm happy for the rest of the day; safe in the knowledge there will always be a bit of my heart devoted to it
Live and let live.
Eddie
Whole chunks of my life come under the heading "it seemed like a good idea at the time".
Your heart is obviously an open book, but if this ever changing world in which we live in makes you give in an cry...……...
Rose, or McCartney ?
Pet cats too.
That’s park life for you
There is always one
Fas est ab hoste doceri
They're unusually keen on attacking cyclists apparently; if you do a Google video search for "magpie attacks cyclist", you'll see what I mean. Despite this, I see them quite often when I'm out on a bike, and haven't yet been attacked.
Check out the last 30 seconds of this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj9O6tyKK-o
If that happened to me, I'd kill 50 of them in retaliation. Might be quite a diverting hobby.
Strange, I've never heard of rooks pecking out lambs eyes as they generally go for crops and carrion.
Possibly a more relevant comment for crows and ravens who typically have a more omnivorous diet?
Besides, with an early trip to the slaughterhouse in their immediate future it's hard to say that the lambs have much to look forward to in their short life thanks to humans.
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