Just seen a magpie kill a bird in our garden, how do we deter them?

[Magp13]

Been enjoying seeing all sorts of birds congregate in our garden and the variety has really increased this year. Was hoping for tits and lo and behold one appeared only to be pecked to death and carried off by a magpie. By the time we raced out it was gone. So sad a song thrush had been following me around as I tidied up from gardening. Worried all the other birds will be scared off now. How do we deter magpies.

I do the same. It stops the best raiding.

they are such clever creatures, they learn your routine, and recognise faces. They are great creatures and fascinating.

Absolutely, my garden may be my garden. I’m merely a custodian of it for the wildlife whose home it actually is.

It's a sad thing to witness OP.

No they’re not! They’re such intelligent birds and believe me, that get just as picked on.

@Magp13 why do you think birds have such large broods of chicks?? They always lose some to natural causes. Its not pretty or nice but everything is part of the great food chain. From the tiniest insect to the biggest bird. Everything feeds something else.

Invest in a large hungry cat 🐈 😻

magpies chuck other birds' eggs out of the nest, not to eat the eggs but just to be nasty. seen a magpie attack a blackbird on the ground too, awful. nasty, spiteful buggers.

To the magpie lovers on this thread come and live in London you'll be surrounded by the b**y things!😐

A pair has nested in bushes opposite the house and they make a right clacking racket every morning! I hate it when I hear the blackbird's alarm call as I know it's them raiding their nest. I read that the thing to do is to deter them from nesting in the first place by making a loud noise close to them but how can you be there every hour of every day? I just try to accept it now.

A couple of days ago, I found the bodies of two juvenile blackbirds with their heads missing. At first I thought it was the neighbourhood cats. I checked our CCTV and it wasn't cats but a pair of Magpies. It was very upsetting. I know it's nature and if they had eaten them then I could accept it but just to kill them and leave them seemed so cruel.

I can't remember the exact species of bird that do this, but some of the brood parasites will hatch first in the nest, then kill off the remaining chicks, somtimes by pecking off their heads. The parent birds will then kick their own dead chicks out of the nest and feed the parasite.

Nature is fascinating but its not all rainbows and fluffy clouds. And the most cruel and violent species is definitely us.

I love watching all of it, even the difficult stuff. Its a meditation on the nature of existence 😊

Poor magpies. They are just doing their thing, like a blackbird that scoffs a worm or a snail. I would enjoy the sight of them flourishing and behaving in accordance with their nature.

Cuckoos! They don’t build their own nests or raise their own chicks, they lay them in other nests and let the other bird parents feed them whilst their own chicks die. It’s very sad but it really is a fantastic demonstration of evolution.

Yes, there is a specific species of cuckoo though that has teeth on its beak precisely for the purpose of decapitating the other chicks. Gruesome and fascinating.

I think if I'd flown from central Africa and was only going to be here a few weeks before making the return journey, I wouldn't be arsed building a nest instead of some well deserved R&R. I haven't heard a cuckoo since the first covid lockdown. https://www.bto.org/get-involved/volunteer/projects/cuckoo-tracking

And I thought it was just pigeons that made stupid nests 😂

Ours have had some right scraps with the local blackbirds, recently. The blackbirds are faster and just come straight back to sing at them again. Blackbird willy waving 😁

I don't know if it's the same pair but last year they chased a squirrel and a weasel across our garden. Absolute bell ends!

Yes, it's sad for us when it happens, but tits have loads of babies, they are not being eaten out of existence. We have magpies come to the garden, but all the other birds species are still here. If tits weren't predated we’d be overun With them. All part of the circle of life.

It's nature in action. Either you want to see animals behaving as nature intended or you don't but trying to deter a wild animal from doing something it is made to do is just wrong IMO. Leave things alone and accept it.

Only bloody humans attribute human traits to animals that don't have the same brain to even be able to understand what being evil is.

Bloody grow up. It's not nice to see but birds have to eat like the rest of the animals. You'll be calling lions evil next. Unfortunately this is the circle of life. We also eat meat I mean you may not but that doesn't stop it being natural.

Dont throw stones at birds because believe me, that makes you evil. You know what you are doing, these are birds who are just doing what they only know to do.

We were just admiring a Jay in the garden yesterday, then it suddenly swooped and picked off a blackbird chick from a nest, it was upsetting but it’s nature.

I'd have been really upset to see that too, but it's part of the cycle of life.

https://sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk/news/a-less-than-black-and-white-look-at-magpies

Terrible idea, cats are a complete disaster for wildlife they will kill small birds, baby chicks, slow worms, frogs, shrews, voles and rabbits. They are non native invasive species brought here by humans.

Cats kill billions of birds annually across the world, they shouldn't be allowed to roam IMO and should have to be kept contained like in places in Aus and NZ.

We have magpies in the garden and jackdaws, they're both native to the UK and they both also need to eat and feed their young. It's not nice to see but it's natural to eat the young of smaller birds.

That’s cuckoos.

I actually love magpies - they are very bright and have a lot of personality. We have a pair in our garden, and one bullies the second. The second has taken to hiding food, badly (a mealworm placed under a piece of grass is not hidden), then hopping back to the other looking incredibly suss. They also fly into the bird feeder to knock seeds out of it, since they can’t land on it.

The other birds in the garden are parakeets and pigeons, so not at any risk.

Thanks, yes I know they're cuckoos. There is a specific cuckoo- I've looked it up now- the Channel Billed Cuckoo- with a toothed beak specifically for decapitating the other chicks. 😊

The magpies plundered my raspberries last year. I'm not sure the red kites are doing their job.