A story

Once upon a time, early 2014 to be precise, a family of magpies came to visit our garden. There were the parents and their two young, who we later named Hoppy and Sibling. When they were fledglings, fresh out of their nest, Hoppy and Sibling walked close to their parents to learn how to forage and listen to the sounds made by earthworms and larvae underground.

This ‘listening for food’ has been proven in a study in 1981 (Floyd and Woodland), where the researchers had recorded the minute sounds of movements made by scarab larvae, and then, using tiny speakers buried underground, they played back the recorded sounds. The magpies detected the sounds, located the speakers, and dug them up! They must have been very disappointed to find that they were not edible.

Anyway, I detract from our story. One day in March 2014 we saw that Hoppy had fishing wire wound around its right foot and the family seemed to have ostracized it and left it to its own devices. Even though it could only hop on one leg – yes, that’s where it got its name from – it was still a great flyer and managed to outwit us each time we tried to catch it to remove the wire.

We called Wilvos and other experts and were told to put out some food, such as minced meat and bacon, to train the bird so we could get close enough to catch it.

It took a couple of weeks to catch Hoppy, and by that time its leg had become infected, so I took it to a friendly local Vet who snipped off the fishing wire and treated the infection. Within a day or two I saw Hoppy walking around the garden with Sibling again, and every time Hoppy spotted us it would draw up its right foot and look at us hoping to get free food again.

Then, a few days later, Sibling’s foot had become entangled in fishing line that had been left laying around in the open somewhere. Thankfully we managed to catch Sibling quickly and removed the fishing line.

Over the next month or two the family carried on foraging in the area, and especially Hoppy and Sibling often walked around our little garden, catching earthworms, larvae, spiders, and all kinds of insects.

One day in July 2014 three very large magpies started to show up and survey the area by foot, the way developers might do. We called them the bullies. I remember our magpie family sitting on the power line next to our garden, carolling. Carolling is a kind of song magpies use to reaffirm territorial ownership. But the bullies totally ignored their territorial claims and carried on walking around unperturbed.

In the days following, magpie wars had broken out, and in particular Hoppy and Sibling were swooped on relentlessly, day after day. The dispute culminated in a very ugly scene with much noise, and it seemed that there were fatalities, and we never saw Hoppy again. Sibling was pushed out to a small neighbouring area, and driven from its familiar childhood territory.

The parents moved to a smaller area up the road, and raised just one young in late 2014. We have not spotted them since.

The bully parents were firmly established until late 2015 and in total control of what was 'our' magpie family’s territory. They too only had one young, but it quickly got bigger than its mother, and confidently pulled worms out of our lawn.