Magpies are getting clever

[Whingey]

Saw them stick their beaks in closed polystyrene chip boxes and bang them until chips fell out 😬

@NoseOfJericho whole nuts in their shells are absolutely fine for corvids.

The smaller birds have their own feeder with seeds/suet.

You don’t need to leave food out for corvids. Just leave them some money so they can choose what to buy themselves.

My dad has what he calls 'hooligan crows' living on his street.

Apparently when they see other crows they face off with them, except on this occasion the other crows were reflections of themselves on his car windscreen.

He thought they were head butting themselves, but when he was driving it started pouring down so he turned his wipers on it turned out they had shredded the blades! So now he has to wrap them up in bubble wrap every time

Most of the cars on his street have been attacked, they also trash the wing mirrors 😂

@dementedma

I have half coconut shells stuffed with bird food hanging on strings from various branches. A crow on the branch couldnt reach the shell, no matter how much he reached and twisted. After a think, he got the string in his beak, pulled it up and stood on it, and could then reach the food! I was so impressed

Unbelievable, for such a tiny bird brain. They're really amazing!

[quote SmidgenofaPigeon]@NoseOfJericho whole nuts in their shells are absolutely fine for corvids.

The smaller birds have their own feeder with seeds/suet.[/quote]
My concern is that the other birds will pick them up if they are whole. A while ago I read that during breeding season peanuts should be cut up because they can choke the chicks - any chicks, not the crafty covids.

I feed all the birds, they get a mix of things but I do cut the nuts up since reading that.

This is an example of what I read:

A mix of whole and split value aflatoxin-tested peanuts, feed your wild birds with foods that are rich in fat, fibre and protein.

Loose whole peanuts can be harmful to young birds as they can cause choking. Please feed from a mesh nut feeder.

The other problem is feeding from the feeders that little feet can become tangled in and causing death. The spiral feeders are bad for that.

It is difficult to feed nuts safely to all of them, so I take the safest option.

I can’t stand magpies. They are so noisy, never shut up. Also mean.. we had one holding down another while the 3rd one pecked it quite viciously. Not delightful creatures..

It’s a window feeder so absolutely nothing to get caught on. I can assure you I’ve been feeding birds for many many years and would never want to cause them harm. I would never use the string mesh peanut feeders and don’t have a spiral one.

The monkey nuts are peanuts in a shell. Not loose peanuts. It’s extremely hard to imagine the great, blue and robins that we get flying off with one of those when they can access their own small-bird friendly food. How would they get their beaks around it? Their beaks also aren’t suited to cracking open shelled nuts. However a magpie would simply fly off with them and break into them elsewhere, I would assume using their very suited beaks to crush them to eat. I’d then assume many many years of evolution has taught them not to shove an entire nut down their young’s throat.

That was to @NoseOfJericho by the way!

But I fully agree it’s good to be cautious.

Talking about birds head butting reflection I was working when a deer head butted glass door and scared the crap out of me 😨

We have robins and blue tits that come to our front garden. Magpies and blackbirds in the back. We've only been feeding the robins and blue tits in the front. But I do want to start feeding the birds at the back - but am now wondering whether this is a good idea.

During the summer when my back door was open magpies used to come into my kitchen and eat the cat biscuits out of the cat bowl!

@ArsenicNLace

During the summer when my back door was open magpies used to come into my kitchen and eat the cat biscuits out of the cat bowl!

Little gits! 🤣🤣🤣

My DH thinks magpies are going into our chicken coop and eating the eggs. We have 2 of them nesting in our apple tree. Before this thread I really wasn’t convinced.

@PantherPantherus

You don’t need to leave food out for corvids. Just leave them some money so they can choose what to buy themselves.

🤣😂

I don't feed the birds nuts this time of year because of the choking hazard with baby birds but I'm sure the magpies/crows will be ok (they probably cut the nuts up with a knife and fork before giving it to their babies).

I read something when I was a child about a crow who wanted a drink of water from a container but he couldn't reach in far enough so he put stones in the container until the water level raised enough for him to drink. I'm in my 50s now and it's stayed with me. They really are clever bastards.

Crows have learnt to put walnuts in front of small cars not large ones when they want them crushed, they wait for the lights to turn red then put the nuts there

Some have refined that and drop the nuts on pedestrian crossings so it's safe for them to retrieve once cracked 😎 shows them in action 😊

@LucindaJane

We have robins and blue tits that come to our front garden. Magpies and blackbirds in the back. We've only been feeding the robins and blue tits in the front. But I do want to start feeding the birds at the back - but am now wondering whether this is a good idea.

Not if the blackbirds nest at the back.

@picklemewalnuts I'm not sure if they do, will have to keep a look out. Our back garden backs onto a load of trees, on the other side is fields. The trees are at the top of a bank, which I can't get up. I'll see if I can spot a nest. But wouldn't the food offering distract them/make it less likely for them to go after blackbird chicks?

This thread reminds me of this excellent Reddit thread about someone worried he’d accidentally made a crow army

www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/ki6fnd/oregon_i_accidentally_created_an_army_of_crow/

There is a sweet update in the anecdote as well!

Possibly attempted murder?
@Leaningtoweroflisa

😂 panther - just realised the update isn’t on that link

www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/lobhtj/oregon_i_accidentally_created_an_army_of_crow/

The crow army use their powers for good...

@en0la

Crows have learnt to put walnuts in front of small cars not large ones when they want them crushed, they wait for the lights to turn red then put the nuts there.

That's incredible. I've seen people who don't seem to know what the red light means...

Love the crow army. I may aspire to a magpie army... though that could endanger my dog so perhaps best not.

Love that Reddit update (I may have something in my eye 😭)