Why are magpies such utter bastards?

[SingingSands]

God it's like a live Attenborough documentary over here.

Working at my desk at the bedroom window and became aware of a commotion outside. Looked out as a magpie swooped down onto my garden path, being chased by a blackbird. Magpie drops a chick on the path then swoops back over the road to the bush where the nest is to raid it again, with its mate. The blackbirds are going crazy.

I rushed outside but the chick, maybe a week or so old, gasped a few times and then died.

Poor blackbirds poor chick

They've had the robin chicks out of the tree in our back garden too.

I am not a magpie fan, they are bastards.

Ahhh yes the get a bad rep. But they are beautiful looking and very intelligent.

It's nature I guess. At least they do it as a food source and not for fun like cats?

*they get a bad rep

That's just nature. The blackbirds are predating on things too...everything eats something. I love the magpies. They're beautiful!

Try visiting an abattoir for a day, and then compare that to a magpie getting food for her chicks.

Because they are OP. There are some in the tree out my back and they are the worst neighbours ever. Noisy fuckers.

Nature, red in tooth and claw.

The magpies in my garden tagteam all the local cats. Ive watched my poor 14 year old moggy lying in garden trying to sleep when one runs up to it to distract him while the other runs up behind him and pecks him. When he turns round to the pecker he then get pecked by the runner. Next door neighbour told me her long haired moggy regularly comes in with bits of hair sticking up where they have pulled a tuft out..... yes.. utter barstewards!!!

It's nature. I love magpies (even have a tattoo!) and corvids as a whole family, they're such intelligent birds. I think it was actually looked into and discovered that magpies are no more cannibalistic than a lot of other birds, they just have a worse reputation.

So do magpies feed chicks to their own chicks? This chick was pretty big. Do they tear them apart first?

Of course I know it's nature, and no, I'm not going to visit an abbatoir @Ifailed - I think you might be overreacting a bit there! 

They're just such pests! They fling all the moss around, raid nests, attack the old doddery cat (yes, us too @Eggnoggoanngoanngoann!) and are so noisy.

Nature is indeed red in tooth and claw. And fascinating when it all plays out on your front path, much more so than the spreadsheet I was trying to focus on