Magpies

[West is Best]

I agree OON, providing the pheasants are generally eaten afterwards. There have been a few, thankfully rare I think, examples of big game shoots ending up with pheasants being ploughed into a large pit at the end of the day. There's no excuse for that.

I really enjoy Hugh F-W on this sort of point. If we're not vegetarians then we can't be against hunting our game and eating it. There was a moment in Hell's Kitchen when Marco Pierre White shot a deer, allegedly at 400 yards, with sniper rifle straight through the heart. He then skinned it, hung it, and served it a few days later for breakfast. To me that's holistic. I had a friend at school who had a waistcoat made out of rabbit skins (about 20 of them). He'd personally shot, skinned and eaten each of the rabbits. I can't see a problem with that.

However if, for very understandable reasons, you are a vegetarian then fair enough. What I have difficulty with are the people who complain about people shooting their own food, but munch their way through a fast-food chicken which has probably been expressed reared in appalling conditions from chick to slaughter in about 8 miserable weeks. At least if we're going to eat meat, let's make the life of that animal as good as it possibly can be.

Anyway, on the topic, I really can't abide killing animals for pleasure where there's no further motive (e.g. food). It sucks as far as I'm concerned.

Edited October 12, 2007 by West is Best

[peterf]

i work for an estate with 5000 plus breeding ewes,both on pasture and fell land.

and i dread lambing time when there is an influx of crows, magpies or any other member of the corvoid species.

i will always do my very best to eradicate them.

funnily enough i do admire their intelligence very clever indeed,and it is by no means a simple turkey shoot.

it can take weeks to catch an old wily bird.

end of the day their role in life is to peck the eyes,tounges and umbillical cords out of new born lambs.

my job is to save lambs lives so the food chain continues.

as for pet rats im sure they are great and also very intelligent,but i was talking of the filthy wild species.

[Coast]

Yes, I have detected a distinct increase in the numbers of Magpies this year and its causing me major driving problems.

You see in this part of Sussex its the law to salute a solitary Magpie to undo the bad luck. You also have to have a little saying along the lines of:

'Hello Mr (or Captain) Magpie, how are you and the family today?'

Not a problem in itself, but at 60+ MPH down some of the interesting back lanes between my home in East Sussex and work in Mid Sussex, saluting and shouting inane drivel out of the window is a positive hazard.

I also feel such a berk doing it in town centres when kids and commuters are about, but it is Sussex law.

[peterf]

Yes, I have detected a distinct increase in the numbers of Magpies this year and its causing me major driving problems.

You see in this part of Sussex its the law to salute a solitary Magpie to undo the bad luck. You also have to have a little saying along the lines of:

'Hello Mr (or Captain) Magpie, how are you and the family today?'

Not a problem in itself, but at 60+ MPH down some of the interesting back lanes between my home in East Sussex and work in Mid Sussex, saluting and shouting inane drivel out of the window is a positive hazard.

I also feel such a berk doing it in town centres when kids and commuters are about, but it is Sussex law.

its the same up north coast,

just its a six gun salute

[West is Best]

You see in this part of Sussex its the law to salute a solitary Magpie to undo the bad luck. You also have to have a little saying along the lines of:

'Hello Mr (or Captain) Magpie, how are you and the family today?'

Not a problem in itself, but at 60+ MPH down some of the interesting back lanes between my home in East Sussex and work in Mid Sussex, saluting and shouting inane drivel out of the window is a positive hazard.

I also feel such a berk doing it in town centres when kids and commuters are about, but it is Sussex law.

Ever since I met Mrs WIB I have done this - such a relief to discover someone else as mad as us! I always do it without fail. One day last summer I stopped and had a dreadful day, which I connected to my heresy. In towns I mutter softly to myself.

Edited October 12, 2007 by West is Best

[M'Lady]

Scousers do this too... only they say, "Hello Mr Magpie, you <insert expletive here>."

[peterf]

funny that,as aseason ticket holder at NUFC.

i'm one aswell

[M'Lady]

No offence meant Peter... I was only talking about the birds... honestly!

[peterf]

No offence meant Peter... I was only talking about the birds... honestly!

LOL only kidding :lol:

[James M]

I have seen an increase in Magpie too, but I have also seen an increase in most other birds aswell including Song Thrushes that I havent seen in the garden for quite a few years.

[davehsug]

There are certainly many more magpies around these days. When I was much younger we had the kids tv show Magpie & yet I'd never actually seen one, despite living on an estate on the edge of town with loads of countryside around.

These days they are everywhere. I regularly watch them from my window at work. There were 2, & then 4 over the summer, now down to 2 again. I presume the other 2 were offspring which have now moved on.

And yes, I also need to salute them, round here it's "Good morning mister magpie, how are your children?".

I know they are not the best behaved birds but they are very beautiful to look at & I'm glad they're there.

Dave

[Just Before Dawn]

Like most corvids, magpies are superb opportunists and great at finding and exploiting ecological niches - in the case of magpies, their numbers have increased on the back of the increase in the number of roadkill carcases which offer an all-year-round food source. I think they're terrific birds, intelligent and social. I've also shot the odd one on the nature reserve I used to work on because they are very partial to little tern eggs and chicks.

I can see the 'it's all nature' argument as valid in the majority of cases, however I don't really have a problem with giving nature a bit of a helping hand on things like this - calling things 'vermin' really doesn't help - 100 years ago, red kites were considered vermin and look what happened to them - I've even heard the term used in reference to sparrowhawks, which came damn close to extinction here in the 1960's.

[Weather-history]

I saw a flock of must have been at least 15 magpies take off near where I live yesterday.

[mezzacyclone]

Must confess to shooting (and instantly killing) nigh on 30-40 magpies in recent years as their numbers do seem to be increasing, away from areas populated by rooks n crows etc. anywayz?

My missus is confused as i'm such an animal lover but i solely do it due to the harassment these corvids do to the blackbirds nests in spring time so i guess i`m against em for that but I do respect their intelligence and physical aspects.

tricky subject overall though!

[Bobby]

Must confess to shooting (and instantly killing) nigh on 30-40 magpies in recent years as their numbers do seem to be increasing, away from areas populated by rooks n crows etc. anywayz?

My missus is confused as i'm such an animal lover but i solely do it due to the harassment these corvids do to the blackbirds nests in spring time so i guess i`m against em for that but I do respect their intelligence and physical aspects.

tricky subject overall though!

Why don't you head off to Africa and kill the lions for killing the gazels? Why not head off to Scotland and shoot dead all the eagles for killing rabbits? Same thing - killing species that are just doing what nature programs them to do - to be predators. Actually, why not kill the blackbirds for killing the poor worms? Things kill each other, that's a fact of nature. I don't think humans have ANY right to decide what species lives and dies, we just keep the nice pretty fluffy ones. Those magpies you have killed could have mates - they might have young and chicks that needed feeding, that probably starved to death because you killed their mother / father, just because you didn't like them doing what is natural, and instead wanted to protect the fluffy little cute blackbirds, who are worm murderers.

Ughh.

Edited November 10, 2007 by Magpie

[Wintergoose]

What else can I add, when Magpie has said it all.

[Just Before Dawn]

Why don't you head off to Africa and kill the lions for killing the gazels? Why not head off to Scotland and shoot dead all the eagles for killing rabbits? Same thing - killing species that are just doing what nature programs them to do - to be predators. Actually, why not kill the blackbirds for killing the poor worms? Things kill each other, that's a fact of nature. I don't think humans have ANY right to decide what species lives and dies, we just keep the nice pretty fluffy ones. Those magpies you have killed could have mates - they might have young and chicks that needed feeding, that probably starved to death because you killed their mother / father, just because you didn't like them doing what is natural, and instead wanted to protect the fluffy little cute blackbirds, who are worm murderers.

Ughh.

I'm sorry, but that's incredibly simplistic. We have a gigantic impact on the natural world with everything we do. That loaf of bread you ate came from wheat whose harvest that probably destroyed dozens of Meadow pipit nests. The field may have been a drained marsh where, 100 years ago, black terns bred (they're now extinct in the UK) or 10 years ago, supported a population of black-tailed godwits, also about to disappear. The water that irrigated it had to come from somewhere - what was chopped up in the pumps? Drainage, roads, houses, agriculture...it's all having an impact. In the last hundred years in Lincolnshire over 100 plants have become extinct - not one of them deliberately collected to extinction. Our natural environment is entirely reliant on our stewardship of it (with two exceptions - high mountains and natural high forest) or on the consequences of our intrusion on it. If you just leave it unmanaged, watch the number of extinctions sky-rocket.

I've undertaken magpie control because I'm not prepared to watch little terns go extinct in Britain because we've confined them to an increasingly tiny fragment of suitable coastal habitat. I can try to preserve what's left of the habitat, but what's the point if they've been eaten?

Edited November 18, 2007 by Just Before Dawn

[Gray-Wolf]

I used to know a 'wild fowler' and through the winter/spring months he'd help farmers with their pigeon problems. He would always shoot magpies as a matter of course and in spring he'd blast the nests to take out both mum and babies......loverly eh?

Did you know that rattling a box of matches can sound so much like a magpie that they'll come and have a natter with you?

[Turnedoutniceagain]

I used to know a 'wild fowler' and through the winter/spring months he'd help farmers with their pigeon problems. He would always shoot magpies as a matter of course and in spring he'd blast the nests to take out both mum and babies

Mum & Babies !!! What Anthropomorphic nonsense, no wonder we can't have a serious debate about pest control on here when people use phrases like that.

Shooting the bottoms out of Corvids' nests is by far the easiest & most effective way to increase the songbird population.

[Bobby]

I've undertaken magpie control because I'm not prepared to watch little terns go extinct in Britain because we've confined them to an increasingly tiny fragment of suitable coastal habitat. I can try to preserve what's left of the habitat, but what's the point if they've been eaten?

Why do you have the right to chose which species to protect and which ones die? Men aren't God - they should leave nature alone to do it's own thing. Humans are just another factor in the natural world. We are animals ourselves - we are part of the natural world. If some species can't adapt to us, that's their problem. Some will adapt, some won't - best to stop playing God, because we aren't, and we have no right in my opinion to cherry pick which species we want to live and which we can murder.

To say that we have "stewardship" over the natural world is typical of human kind's arrogance. No we don't have stewardship over it. We are a part of it just like everything else. Successful, yes, but so are many other species. We share it with all the other species - we have no more stewardship over the world than any other species.

Edited November 20, 2007 by Magpie

[Potent Gust]

Again I echo Magpies comments

[mezzacyclone]

Did you know that rattling a box of matches can sound so much like a magpie that they'll come and have a natter with you?

Seeing as I can neither afford or simply wish to go to Africa? then I'll try that tip!

thank you very much GW

Edited December 3, 2007 by mezzacyclone

[peterf]

it seems certain members are poles apart on this subject.

everyone to their own i suppose,i'll continue doing what i think is best if i dont my kids will go hungry .

[flagpole]

Speaking of Magpies (I believe that was the topic) this little fellow came to say hello to me the other day.

[peterf]

i'd of pulled its neck