Tag Archives: Magpie

Smart Magpies

28 Thursday Aug 2025

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A pair of Magpies live in the same field as ‘my’ crows. In fact, I frequently see them perched in the tree tops when I enter the field, and they often see me before the crows do.

When the crows do notice me and fly down for food, the Magpies fly across to the nearest trees or bushes to watch and wait.

Once the crows have filled their crops and beaks with suet pellets, they fly off to cache their food under bushes, amongst clumps of long grass, and in various other hiding places.

Seizing their opportunity, the Magpies nip in to grab what they can while the crows are absent. They used to just eat what they were able to grab but they’ve obviously learnt from watching the crows and they now cache their own food. How smart is that?!

One-eyed

10 Monday Feb 2025

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Magpies are beautiful birds and I am often guilty of overlooking them so, when this bird posed nicely on a nearby branch, I admired it and took some photos.

It was only when the bird turned its head that I realised it had somehow lost an eye, Fortunately, that didn’t seem to be affecting its ability to fly or feed and, as a second Magpie was hovering in the trees very nearby, I presume it had also been successful at finding a mate.

A bat’s demise

01 Thursday Dec 2022

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This is the sad tale of a bat that ventured out during the daytime only to be snaffled by a Magpie. I initially noticed something tiny flying around low to the water in Cardiff Bay but wasn’t sure what it was until it flew up and clung to a nearby concrete wall. Bat!

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Sadly, at the very moment I was taking some photos of it, a Magpie swooped down from above and grabbed the tiny beastie, carrying it up to the ledge above. The Magpie shook its prize a little, perhaps confused by what it had captured, then carried the bat into the nearby bushes. A Carrion crow followed the Magpie very shortly afterwards and, judging by the Magpie’s subsequent shrieking, I suspect the crow carried off the prize.

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Speaking to Amy, a local bat expert, it seems this individual was a species of Pipistrelle, which Amy thought looked underweight. That, plus the fact that it was flying during the day, means the bat was probably ill or injured, so its demise, though very unfortunate, may well have been inevitable.

Soaked

03 Tuesday May 2022

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I can’t be sure what happened to this Magpie – it was soaked and shaking – but I suspect it had a narrow escape from a bird of prey, as Peregrines nest not too far from where it was sitting. It may have been struck, stunned but not caught, and plummeted in to the sea. Somehow the Magpie had made it from the water to the front yard of a nearby apartment building, and I can only hope it was able to recover fully from its drenching.

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A mischief

08 Tuesday Mar 2022

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There’s something about the grassy playing fields of Cardiff’s Hamadryad Park that Magpies love, as I often see large numbers there, prospecting for worms and other insects. Today I counted 44 birds, and more could be heard and seen in the neighbouring trees.

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I’ve just been reading that there are several collective nouns for a flock of Magpies – amongst them, congregation, tribe, charm – but the one I like best is mischief. The four birds shown below certainly looked like they were plotting some kind of devilment.

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132/366 A sanguine sight

11 Monday May 2020

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Warning: the photos in this post are a bit gory!
The highlight – if this can be called a highlight – of my early morning local walk was this Magpie, feeding on the grass in a local park.

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Although Magpies mostly eat fruit, seeds and small insects, they are also opportunists who will quite happily scavenge household food waste, eat the eggs and chicks of other birds, and graze on road kill and other carrion. This bird had found a dead rat and was happily pulling it apart for a bloody, but presumably nourishing breakfast.

At least, I hope it was nourishing – the rat could, I suppose, have been poisoned, and I’m not sure whether that would have an adverse effect on the bird. I hope not.

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Nests

09 Monday Apr 2018

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Just like their makers, nests come in all shapes and sizes, and they’re made of all sorts of materials: twigs and branches, feathers, moss, paper and plastic, mud. They can be seen high in trees and on buildings, hidden secretively away in hedges and behind reeds, or plonked in a hole in a concrete platoon, as I saw some Coots do recently in Cardiff. Some are messy and loosely constructed, others are cosy and snug, still others are miniature works of art.

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This is prime bird-nesting season so it’s quite likely you’ll see nests when you’re out walking. Please stay well away and do not disturb parents, eggs or babies. In Britain (and I’m sure in most countries) it is, in fact, an offence under The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 to ‘intentionally take, damage, destroy the nest of any wild bird while it is in use or being built’ and to ‘intentionally take or destroy  the egg of any wild bird’. (You can read more details here.) And, rest assured, my photos were all taken with a long lens, well away from the birds, so as not to disturb them.