Vicious magpies

[Guerlainista]

Posting for traffic!

We’ve lived in a suburban london street for 15 years. Odd magpie about no issues. Over the last week we suddenly seem to have multiple (6+) in our front garden and they are attacking local cats (pecked one really badly) and are now permanently squawking day & night outside.

Why?
What’s happened? What can I do?

Nothing against magpies (always doff my cap to them 😆)
...but this is a bit extreme

To you the cat is a pet. To the magpie it's a child killer.

Frouby Hyenas are extremely valuable to the ecosystem. They are scavengers so eat the bones that other animals won't. Without hyenas the Savannah would be littered with bones and carcasses.

Not at all relevant to the thread.

We have them on our balcony as they nest in a nearby tree. One year they decided to use it as a butchering area - lots of dead birds for DH us to clean up. Most years they just stand on the railing and chatter at stupid o’clock in the morning. We have some water pistols to squirt at them to get them to bugger off which means we get a couple of extra hours sleep. I think they see the balcony as their territory though. Which is annoying.

Hyenas are extremely valuable to the ecosystem. They are scavengers so eat the bones that other animals won't

They're also predators in their own right. I was lucky enough when I was in Africa to see a hyena chase and kill a young deer. It had to wolf it down (interesting mix of metaphors ) so you could see the leg sticking through it's belly ... otherwise a nearby lion would have chased it off and had a free lunch.

Our tracker was watching for vultures miles away to help guide us to lions ...

Oh yes, Hyenas are proficient predators too. I think they are fascinating.

Vultures are also key to the ecosystem by tidying up any left over bits, I think I read that they will even eat the blood soaked sand so that there is not nay trace of the carcass left.

This is a timely thread for me!

Just last night I picked up a magpie fledgling in the garden and put it in a hanging basket - beneath the nest, but out of reach of cats. (and no, birds do not abandon babies touched by humans - they can't really smell)

I shut my two indoors, and now I'm glad for more reason than one. I saw the parents escorting next door's cat off the premises.

Funnily enough, I've just listened to a "Rutherford and Fry" podcast about how birds are basically dinosaurs that survived the Great Extinction ..

Yeah, well the chick I rescued last night certainly sounded very pterodactyl-y.

One of our local magpies came off worst in a tussle with a sumo woodpigeon, earlier this week. It sat looking quite sorry for itself for a good half hour. Karma for the baby great tit I saw one of them rip to shreds, last Spring.

The crazy woodpeckers who have claimed our walnut tree seem to have seen off the magpies that were hanging around hassling the smaller birds.

The woodpeckers aren't very big (black, white and red) but they are very flappy and squarky!

sumo wood pigeon 😂😂😂
We get those. Massive. Size of small chickens.

I was watching a pair of magpies earlier going mad and hawking in the garden. My cat was asleep in the grass and they wanted him gone. They were flying down right next to him to get him to move. He occasionally looked up in I’m trying to fucking sleep here kind of way but wouldn’t move. Went on for about 30 mins until I took him in as couldn’t stand the hawking.

I watched 2 magpies pin down a pigeon once and repeatedly stab it through the chest. They are vicious. But so clever.