General Chat

Buried in another thread ...

For you, with my condolences.

http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/deathtomagpies/

;)

Magpies can be very cruel and I have heard they attack nests and kill the chicks,but I still dont think they deserve to be killed off!

Oh my goodness.

Does nobody have a sense of humour?

Glenys just witnessed magpies killing two nestlings in her garden.

Apparently, apart from the distress to people witnessing such savagery (which can of course be brushed off as sentimentalism), magpies really are threatening the survival of some songbird species in the UK.

Since there is no way in the world that magpies could ever be exterminated, even if a bunch of people set about very determinedly to accomplish that, I think we might really take the petition as just a wee bit of hyperbole.

I have a very good sense of humour,thank you:-))


and I do know how impossible it would be to kill the whole species;-))

Btw, apparently magpies don't kill to eat. They often, if not usually, do not eat what they kill at all.

They kill to establish and expand their territory. Their intent is to exterminate other species ...

Nazis of the bird world!

I noticed that,Angie:-))

Im not a huge fan of Magpies,I do know they peck the eyes from Chicks, and take over nests,their a bit like the pirates we see today on the seas!

Ha. ;)


http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards.asp?wci=thread&tk=1155513

The uniformed Nazis offered a parting "Heil Hitler" salute. With that, they climbed into a rubber raft and rowed back to a U-boat, where they may have boasted about having "invaded" the United States. The submarine that had brought the Nazis to the rugged coast of Maine had been at the entrance to Frenchman Bay for eight days. On the ocean floor, as fishing boats passed overhead, the 56 men aboard waited for the right opportunity for the two plainclothes spies to head for land.

*Operation Magpie, the final attempt by Nazi spies to infiltrate America, had begun.*

The magpies are a real pain here at the moment.They are noisy and squabble and I think take eggs from nests.I have found 3 dead young magpies in the garden.Do the parents kick them out of the nest?They were fully feathered .

They take the eggs from nests, baby chicks the lot.............I hate them.............

Years ago the farmers used to shoot crows but that has stopped and their numbers have soared.....

Im not Sure,Helen.
They do take eggs,I know that for a fact:-(((

We don't have 'em here in Canada -- but we have crows, larger less civilized version of the same thing.


http://www2.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html?
id=5aca5b9f-665e-4e3c-b5fd-c752a838d5d3

Return annual crow cull: Naturalist
Gerry Powers views them as nasty predators killing off songbirds

Flocks of marauding crows in Abbotsford [British Columbia] have one naturalist calling for a mass murder.

Soaring populations of the black bullies are out of control, said Gerry Powers, a member of the Central Valley Naturalists.

"People think nothing of killing a rat but they throw a fit when you kill a crow," Powers said. "I put crows in the same category -- they're nasty predators."

Powers is calling for the return of the annual crow shoot to cull the creatures that he says have no natural enemies and are decimating songbird, robin and raptor populations.

... "You can get a shot at a crow, but you'll never get another one," said Russ Dawson, a bird ecologist who teaches at the University of Northern B.C.

A crow shoot or falconry isn't going to do much in the long run to control the population, he said.

Dawson doesn't think their impact on the songbird population is something people should fret about.

"Crows are making a living, just like everybody else. It's a natural process that we're seeing here," he said.



Differing opinions everywhere!

I found This On Google:-)))

http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/m/magpie/index.asp

Our Magpie is part of the crow family and I don't think their is a predator (apart from a cat) that can naturally dwindle its number.....

I heard somewhere that magpies numbers used to be controlled by gamekeepers who used to destroy nests. It doesn't happen anymore and there is speculation that the rise in magpies and the dwindling numbers of sparrows are not unrelated.

The RSPB link blames humans for songbird declines

http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/m/magpie/effect_on_songbirds.asp

and I don't doubt there's total truth in that.

Actually, now I remember what I was reading -- many UK songbirds winter in sub-Saharan Africa, and it's pressure on their habitat there that is a major factor in declines.

When a songbird population is already fragile, though, magpies don't seem to be helping any.

Too many people jumped on the bandwagon a few years back for the 'decking and low maintenance gravel' gardens...that I believe had a detrimental effecy on the garden bird population...no cover, no 'wild bits' equals no insects so no birds. Also a run of really poor nesting seasons, due to bad weather .

Lots of magpies round here , more than i have ever seen...but then there is the countryside for it also a lot of roadkill.

Me, I ripped out the lawn in the small back yard and small side yard, and installed trees and tres and trees. All but the linden at the side, which I bought big, started out as saplings, or even seedlings, self-sprouted.

Now have three huge birch trees in the back yard (about 20 feet by 50 feet). And an enormous lilac.

At the side, back along the fence by the garage, a 20-foot eastern catalpa (self-seeded from down the street and then transplanted), an 8-foot blue juniper, and a 12-foot white pine brought as a seedling from my brother's farm.

In the 3-feet deep space between the front porch and the sidewalk: three slightly smaller catalpas (getting ready to interfere with overhead wires, unfortunately), and an 8-foot blue juniper.

In the actual side garden, about 25 feet by 15 feet: the 20-foot linden, a 12-foot blue juniper, a couple of trunks of 12-foot red-leafed sand cherry (stolen as a sprout from a neighbour's yard -- anybody want one?), a 12-foot soft maple (self-seeded from the now gone huge one behind my yard), a huge spreading dogwood bush ... and perenials of all sorts.

Problem is, I can't actively attract birds because we have cats, and also a feral colony. In this urban neighbourhood we mostly just get sparrows and starlings, with the odd blue jays and very odd cardinal. Oh, and pigeons. But we do our bit for the bees!

I'm very proud of my urban trees, in case you can't tell!

If you haven't seen a flowering eastern catalpa ("bean tree"), check here:

http://images.google.ca/images?hl=en&q=catalpa&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2

Having them self-seed the way they do on our street is really amazing, particularly since we're supposed to be too far north for them. They grow 3 or 4 feet a year and they're stunning shade trees. If anybody'd like one, I've got a couple of seedlings going ... ;)

There's been quite a few programmes on at the moment about the decline of bees. Very worrying, bees, birds etc.

We have a bumble bee colony (I'm not up on the technicalities of bees -- they're all the big fat ones) in the garage (along with the feral cats and raccoons). Last year it seemed to pretty much disappear -- we'd hoped that with it being so local, hanging out mostly in our garden, it would be okay. There seem to be some this year.

But yikes. I've just been reading that my catalpas are the magpies of the tree world!

http://themondaygarden.com/archives/2005/05/catalpa_great_american_and_inv.html

Hi Janey; OMG, didn't expect that! :-))

It's alright, I've calmed down now. I know it's nature (she can be such a b*tch sometimes), but it was just a hell of a shock.

After that, I just couldn't believe it when I logged on here; the top thread was that one about Rose's original thread, etc. etc. and I thought - why all this daft arguing? So I, er, verbally set forth.

Thanks for the link, you little minx, you! :-)) But, despite what I saw, I won't be signing it. And thank you for the condolences, lol.
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