Magpies

[poliphilo]

We were at Ruth's on Sunday and John, who was sitting facing the bird table, saw a magpie swoop down on a starling, break its neck with one twitch of the beak and carry it off. Smart birds magpies, beautiful too.

 

Strange then how much we hate them.  There was an item on the news- or maybe it was one of those country life programmes- about some rural types who are going round trapping and killing magpies (with the blessings of whatever authority applies) because they believe they're responsible for the decrease in the number of songbirds (not that that's anything more than a guess). I'm very fond of songbirds too, but I think it's petulant of us to play favourites like this. Besides, if we were really serious about protecting songbirds we'd bell all the cats. Is the Natural World our garden that we can choose which species thrive in it and which don't? Well, yes, in a small, over-managed country like Britain I suppose it is- but don't expect me to approve.

 

We anthropomorphise our beasts. Worse than that, we characterise them in terms of the class system.  Some we think of as noble, some as rabble. Hawks kill songbirds too, but they get a pass because of their long association with the aristocracy. The glamour of the big house rubs off on them.  Magpies, though handsomer than any hawk and much more intelligent, never sat on any ducal wrist- and because they scavenge and pick up shiny things we have them down as vagabonds and thieves. Common, common, common.  Call in the gamekeepers; we'll teach 'em to know their place.   

Comments

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

I cannot see your comments here. Whether I hit the "reply" option or the "comments" option, this is what comes up.
I wanted to say that I dont believe cats kill that many birds after all. I have seen cats stalk birds and when the cat leaps, the bird flies off and kitty cannot follow. It would have to be a very slow bird indeed to fall into the claws of a cat. Cats prefer to hunt on the ground, so you would seldom find a cat climbing a tree in order to get a bird. Well fed house cats could care less about wild "poultry" for dinner, but they do instictively chase after things that move about suddenly. And they often miss.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Once I entered my comment, all of the other comments appeared. So, just ignore the first two sentences of my post...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

According to the BBC, domestic cats kill 55 million birds in Britain every year. The figure for the USA must be many times greater.

I've owned cats. They're clever and effective predators.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Actually, they are less effective than one might think: only one in seven attempts results in a kill, on average. The ratio is roughly the same for big cats in the wild too, as I recall.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Lately over here not too many of us are letting cats roam free any more. We have wild coyotes roaming in cities, and they attack dogs and cats, and sometimes even a small child. Also hawks and falcons are making their nests in skyscrapers and towers and steeples. Hawks kill hundreds if not thousands of pigeons and squirrels and perhaps ducks - and maybe cats and other more desirable birds than pigeons and seagulls. We welcome them in the city as a means of controlling the pigeon, rat and squirrel populations.
But sadly, as I stated above, our kitties are mostly housebound now.