Magpies

[Henrietta]

Yes, that occured to me too. That would mean a double whammy for the magpie!

[Exeldama]

oh goody i love these discussions.

Magpies vermin what twaddle. They were here well before we called them such and didnt wipe out all our wee birds. Neither are chicks their favourite food, its a big myth. They certainly do take them but so do many birds including Greater spotted woodpeckers.. (kill them shall we). Great tits sometimes kill blue tits, swans often kill other waterfowl.. its a duff argument.

The decline in our wee birds is multifacetted. The most likely big offenders are intensive agriculture, habitat loss, domestic cats (shall we kill them all... they kill far more than magpies) and the removal of the magpies only real avain predator.. Goshawk. (Gamekeepers). Yes roadkill has helped sustain numbers but so has the fact us humans leave our rubbish everywhere to be scavenged.

The anti Magpie lobby is well supported by the Game keepingfraternity becuase being oppurtunists they will take eggs of pheasant, partridge etc.

If you get a magpie orphan they are easy to teach to talk... better than the average parrot.

To me its a bit like the weed argument... if you cant find a use for it or it aint as pretty as you would like its a weed. Wildlife left to its own devises will find a nice happy medium with periodic cycles of boom and bust, magpies are no exception.