Magpies

I`ve never had any problems with magpies, we don`t see them very often, but when we do get any, I love to look at them, they`re a beautiful bird. I don`t believe in culling anything.....unless it`s wasps, that I`d welcome with open arms!

We must have brave sparrows in our area. Quiet often there's a magpie hoping round the lawn and sparrows and starlings on the bird table. The smaller birds seem obviously.

I would never shoot them, or harm them in any way. They are still beautiful to look at but so viscious. Will just have to stay vigilant and keep shooing them off. It's just nature I suppose.

Sometimes I think it is wrong to have a bird feeder in your garden. Birds like a sparrow hawk must think it is a take-away!

We don't get magpies here in north Scotland but plenty of birds of prey.

Calls to cull Magpies? Dear god why must we want to control nature, hunt the fox, cull the badger, cull magpies , no way

I hate them too, and they can even steal chicken eggs from our nesting boxes.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeEzObuYVx8
Our neighbour shoots them .

I have a pair of black caps which use my feeder. They are the only birds that stay put when the magpies descend. They are brave little things! I wonder why we hate magpies but love cuckoos, which are just as cruel in their own way?

The other day I was sitting at the computer when I heard a 'thud'.

To my surprise is was a Magpie which was chasing a sparrow and it had overshot and hit the window promptly landing on it's feet.
The sparrow was looking at the Magpie and there were four other bloody Magpies in attendance. I think they were hunting the poor thing.

I ran out clapping my hands, and they took off clacking and shouting as they do and I noticed other sparrows around.

Magpies are horrible carnivorous birds. I always scoot them out of my garden, and am on 'red alert' in May and September when the baby blackbirds hatch. They eat baby song birds and eggs too, but round here they seem to eat anything that moves. I've seen them bullying wood pigeons too but they seem to avoid crows. maybe they have met their match there as they are equally as aggressive.

It's heartbreaking to see nests being attacked by magpies - like you, I've seen it many times - and they must be the most universally disliked of birds (except by the RSPB, who are deaf to calls for a cull on their ever increasing numbers). I don't think you can do anything to deter them even at ground level. Nature, red in tooth and claw, I'm afraid.