I'm going to shoot these fucking magpies!!

[allsquareknickersnofurcoat]

There are two of them. They must have a nest nearby, they are circling my back garden non-stop and cawing all day and half the night. DS is just sleeping in his cot (his room is on the back) and they are bloody loud. Plus, I feel sorry for next doors cats who are both being attacked whenever they go anywhere near their house or mine.

And now, to top it all off, they are landing on my bloody sky dish and disrupting the signal!!!

but they are representing joy! Don't do it!

and if a magpie tried to attack any one of my three cats they would be sorry!

If it was 1 magpie, YWNBU. But's it's 2. And I have to question whether you have a gun liscense

Its certainly not my joy!!

Haha, they are fat house cats. That often think my house is theirs. So I'm not that concerned for them

Hang on... If there's a nest nearby... Could be a third or a fourth nearby soon. Is someone pregnant?

but take heart in the fact the joy must be coming!

Spooky! We'll find out when I test again in the morning hopefully...

We seem to have an invasion of magpies recently.... Quite often see 10-15 of them in the tree...drives the cat and me nuts.

It's the noise they make.

Grr.

I need an air rifle.

Haha! A bit of an omen, then

They're horrible - we had a blackbirds nest in the front garden and they pulled the babies out and murdered them . dd put some 'shiny things' in the back garden to try to distract them

Oh please will you come and do ours....F'ing bullies!

They have a nest in a very tall tree near our home and patrol around like they own the place...terrorising other birds and creatures.

Hate them!!!!!!

And while you are here please have a word with the squirrels who are getting the lion share of the peanuts that we put out for the little birds! They hang upside down on the feeder trying to get the nuts...impossible!

I have seen a magpie take a blackbird chick in front of it's mother.....
Poor mother kept dive bombing to save her little one...but it was hopeless. Magpie grabbed the bird between it's feet and flew low..to kill it!

And I have seen them taunt cats....

No! magpies are my special sign of someone special being near me.

We're overrun with the nasty fuckers here. You have my sympathy OP

Last year I could hear what almost sounded like screaming coming from my roof. When I ran out, it was a Magpie literally ripping the head off a Sparrow whilst the Sparrow's mate (I assume) was the one 'screaming' and squaking.

Squawking!

Our cat has caught a magpie before.

Where are you? I'll send DH round with his gun.

Perhaps you could invest in one of these, sausages? www.amazon.co.uk/Stainless-Steel-Squirrel-Proof-Feeder/dp/B000TAI9WW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1305741772&sr=8-1

The look on a squirrel's face as it slides down the stainless steel cover and falls to the ground is priceless.

Great stuff Izzy...this is our plan!

Just watching the squirrel wrapped around the bird feeder trying to get the last few peanuts from the bottom. Quite funny really....

and the birds aren't daft...they are gathering to eat the crumbs that he creates!

Good price on those feeders...am going to get DH to order me one tonight.

We are in London choufleur....methinks it's going to be pretty difficult as the big tree is covered in leaves now. I think the magpies are a lost cause...
Squirrels first....

I hate magpies, there are two who nest near us every year I spend a lot of my time chasing them out of the garden.

Yesterday though, all the little birds in the garden went crazy to the extent that three of them kept flying into my French doors in panic, when I went out into the garden there was a kestrel or sparrowhawk hovering over the garden, queue me and the DC's jumping up and down yelling our heads off. No birdies got eaten yesterday thanks to our noise (although a couple might have a concussion).

get a larsen trap and catch them.

what then? are they edible?

I'm not sure if your maggies are the same as our Aussie ones (basically a black and white crow with a warbling song and a crap attitude to anything that moves within 200 metres if there are chicks in the nest) but I think they're a scourge on the natural world. They were swooping my grand-daughter a few months ago and I found swishing a fishing rod and looking like a total idiot doing it in the air to make a whooshing noise put them off their game. A mate suggested feeding them cheese to make them friendlier and said they're only protecting their young, but then again so was I! Depending on the season we have flocks of anything up to 2,000 cockatoos called little corellas and others in smaller flocks up to about 500 birds called galahs that come through the area and stay for a few days. The bloody maggies manage to hide when the cockies are in town!

Trying living somewhere with Australian Magpies. Now they are vicous bastards, who make British magpies look all sweet and innocent!

I should have read PoppaRob's post first