How can I stop magpies from bullying my cat?

[AngryGreasedSantaCatcus]

For some unknown reason (no remains or feathers around) one of the magpies living in the tree overlooking our garden has taken a dislike to our cat.

As soon as he's out , it swoops in, follows him, screams at him and aggressively flies at him.

He's miserable and does these really pitiful cries and runs back inside. Makes no attempts at fighting back .

The noise is driving us up the bend too as it's right outside our window and the magpie keeps going until the cat is out of sight. It also doesn't give two fucks if we're outside with him.

Any suggestions?

Magpies remember as they are part of the very intelligent corvid family so don't do anything that will turn their attention onto you.

My DDs cat tried to "steal" a magpie baby and after that they kept attacking her every time she went out. So we used to go out with her and clap at the magpies to scare them off but didn't do that if we went outside but the cat didn't. They soon realised to leave the cat alone unless it got too close...and that's fair enough in my view.

Definitely nesting. We have trees with lots of magpies at the end of our garden. They pay no attention to the cats until they have chicks in their nests.

Nesting bird defending her nest from a predator. Doing anything to deliberately scare her will make things worse, they have long memories ! Chicks don’t take long to fledge, so it won’t be forever. They outgrow the best very quickly.

ours was terrorised for years by the magpies because once he took a baby. They stalked him forever. They have long memories!

Your cat is lovely.

Magpies sometimes like to amuse themselves by annoying others creatures. They used to hop around my previous dog RIP and when she got annoyed they would fly up into a tree where she would bark up at them and one of them would mimic her bark and cackle with its mate.

one of them would mimic her bark and cackle with its mate

That made me laugh, poor dog 😆

We had a blackbird who did this but DCat wasn't bothered by it. The constant noise was annoying for us though, but we figured thats nature for you. One day it was no more, it's attention had been so much on DCat that it didn't notice the Sparrow Hawk.

😱

You have my sympathies, my tabby is being screamed at whenever he goes out and they leave the 2 old cat boys alone? I don't know if he did something awhile ago but he doesn't attack them and they get really close and torment him and the noise is hell. The RSPB said one way to deter them is to cut plastic bottles and old CD's and tie them to the trees or bushes (these magpies sit in my apple tree and wait for him but this isn't where there chicks are, if they have any there quite a way in the trees 2 gardens over but it doesn't seem to matter, they just swoop from wherever they are into my tree). According to the RSPB they really dislike the shine and glitter of plastic or the silver CD parts, it makes them uncomfortable. So I am going to give that ago before I escalate. I wouldn't want to hurt any creature but these bas**ds are driving me mad. R

Our dc keeps getting swooped by the crows living in a neighbours garden and the seagulls living on the roof a few doors down, they keep shitting on him as well!!. He's really jumpy when he goes outside now but to be honest it's probably his own fault

it's because they have a nest nearby that they protect against a predator.
they are being good parents (if a bit noisy).

it's unlikely that they will injure your cat.
if you want to prevent it happening you need to prevent your cat getting close to the nest.

They're having youngsters now si they are overprotective of them.
It's gonna pass in a few weeks.

Definitely spray them with water or wave a feather duster! We had kne neighbour who was gping to shoot them with pellets, it got that bad here, Magpies are nasty horrible birds who kill other birds chick's and take over the nest. They are much worse than a cat. They are stone cold murders! We have drove them away here and if we ever find a nest we destroy it. Don't let magpies take over your gardens and don't let them kill other birds and take their nests!

Yep babies atm, magpies are being a pain near me too, they seem to think the birdbath in our garden is exclusively for them, and attack the birds that want to use it.

I expect your cat did something - tried to chase a magpie or something. It's the time of year when fledglings are on the ground. They have a few days on the ground before they can actually fly. They're very vulnerable so maybe the parents are just warning your cat off.
Our cat once tried to catch a baby seagull. After that every time he went in to the garden, the mother seagull would swoop down and try and attack him. If I hadn't seen my cat trying to get the baby I would have had no idea why he was suddenly being targeted!

Crows drove the magpies out of our tree and seagulls smashed up the crows nest . Oddly enough the Magpies and seagulls seem to get on ok , sit side by side in the roof

It did settle down. They have a go at him every now and then , but the threatening behaviour/swoops and chasing/taunting stops. There does seem to be a big turf war going on between them,pigeons ,crows and seagulls. No clear winner yet but very birdy around here.

I have joined mumsnet just to reply to you!

we are also at our whits end! We have one particular magpie who hates our cat. It’s been taunting him for the last two weeks. Poor thing only wants to sunbathe outside. The noise is relentless, such a racket!!

we got told magpies get scared off by shiny things. So we’ve done the old CD hack of hanging them up around the garden, it used to be a thing and I remember my nan hanging them up around her vegetables. Its when they’re hanging on thread the movement of the reflected light they don’t like. I must say it definitely doesn’t come near the garden as much now. Maybe that’s worth a try!!

OP found it settled down in early June, so not long now @Kayyyleigh123

I like the magpies. There is a cat that keeps coming onto my garden to potentially attack my bantams. The magpies are having none of it!

A small fountain in a pond puts them off swooping, too.

D(for Dumb, not Dear)Cat gets angrily bollocked by our sparrows when he goes to a particular part of the garden with that look on his face. They ignore him when he's having a crap, but they can tell he's up to something. It's not an alarm call, it's pure feathery rage.

For his own sake, I'm glad that he's always noped out when he got close enough to realise how big corvids are.

We used to have robins screaming at one of ours when he was trying to sleep outside. He wasn't interested in birds; he was a mouser. They'll stop when the babies are safely fledged and moved on.

They are having youngsters so they are just overprotective atm.

Magpies eat other bird's chicks and eggs and attack their nests, so while I sympathise with them protecting their own it is a bit limited.
Mind you our cat is scared of anything bigger than a bee so just comes rocketing in if there are magpies or pigeons in the garden.
I do find the rotary clothes airer puts magpies off a bit. But you do run the risk of them pooping on your washing!