The discordant cackling of magpies has joined the dawn chorus. A pair – “two for joy”, according to the children’s rhyme – has laid claim to an old nest in a tree in a neighbour’s garden. Magpies originally built it in the hawthorn outside our bedroom window, many years ago. They arrived carrying large twigs gripped at their mid-point, balanced for flight, then found they couldn’t force them through the tangle of branches. But the magpie (Pica pica) is a problem solver and these birds quickly discovered that by shifting their grip to the end they could easily drag their burden into the heart of the tree.
All to no avail, though. Builders arrived to work on our house. The birds took umbrage and decamped to our neighbour’s hawthorn, dismantling their handiwork and laboriously ferrying their construction materials to the new location.
The current nest has been reused annually, growing as each new pair makes additions. The impressive ball of sticks is now a fortress. This morning, while the cock magpie stood guard on the highest branch, long tail raised, the hen evicted an angry grey squirrel that sat chattering and shaking its tail in fury.
Despite its handsome pied plumage with rainbow iridescence, some people hate this bird. They dislike its raucous, swaggering demeanour, and those of an Aesop’s Fables mindset, attributing human morality to animal instinctive behaviour, consider them evil because of their habit of taking songbirds’ eggs. Outside the breeding season, magpies’ diet consists of soil animals, carrion and plant material.
“Too many magpies” is a common reaction, but human activity has surely played a part in its increase and predilection for living around human habitation; discarded fast food and traffic roadkill provide easy winter food sources, just as peanuts on the bird table support the blue tit population.
Wildlife gardens, unnatural, anthropogenic habitats, provide irresistible opportunities for this adaptable bird. Nevertheless, during all the years that magpies have nested here, blue tits, goldfinches, tree sparrows, blackbirds, wrens, song thrushes, hedge sparrows, collared doves, wood pigeons and robins have also managed to raise successful broods, despite losses from these egg predators. Locally, domestic cats pose a greater threat to the songbird population.
