birdpix

 I was talking to chap recently ,who liked Magpies coming into his garden as they ate snails and his plants didnt suffer.He liked the way there is no need to use chemicals or feel bad about killing slugs and snails ,he liked the way it is natural ,recyling, or part of a food chain .I shook the guys hand ,I felt we had connected.All beings ,especially creatures as inteligent as Magpies are sentient ,they express emotions and have a wide range of what we would call feelings. Magpies are very capable of showing fear against  for example mankind ,this has been proven conclusively and scientifically ,many times.I talk to people on a daily basis ,usually the older generation ,who apparently blinkered to the beauty and intelligence ,hate Magpies .These people talk of Magpies being vermin ,something to shoot ,thats in the way of other more worthy birds in their gardens.There is more than a hint of irony here ,the earths human population has more than doubled in the past eighty years and will do so again in my lifetife time should I reach the average life expectancy ,is this attitude not a tad hypocritical ,after all the Magpie population has not exploded proportionally.Around five million years before the first people on this planet ,there were Magpies ,so it isnt a case of Magpies invading our terriotory ,it is in fact the opposite way around.Its legal to shoot and kill a Magpie,its ok in the UK to persecute an innocent creature in the eyes of the law.This I feel is definately wrong .Going back to the older genearation for a moment ,they justify their Magpie hate by citing ill informed things like they are the reason for the decline in song birds.This is nonsense,yes Magpies take eggs from amongst others  songbirds ,nature has bargained for this ,it no way effects song bird numbers.(to digress try looking at pollution and loss of habitat to partly  adress this problem )

             In his book The Emotional lives of Animals ,Mark Berkoff recalls an incident where he came across four Magpies around the corpse of another Magpie ,he watched their behaviour ,each adult Magpie ,gently pecked the dead body ,then in turn covered the dead Magpie in grass.In other words they were grieving for the dead ,giving one of their number what we would call a funeral.

             Its well documented how intelligent the crow family are ,they can use tools,plan things in advance ,anticipate outcomes of sitiations.In her book Corvus ,Esther Woolfson ,kept a Magpie as an indoor pet -it had fallen from the nest at an early age and couldnt be released back into the wild.Her Magpie could not only talk ,but went one better than a parrot and talked in the authors own accent! It was amusing to her friends on the phone who on hearing the Magpie talking in this  accent swore blind that it was her.

        In our garden ,we are lucky enough to be visited by Magpies ,they are very welcome ,they are worthy of our respect .I enjoy watching them ,they are fascinating and beautiful.