Sharing with magpies

Magpies have taken over the garden. We were gone for three days and when we came home they had moved in like a band of thugs. 

They dive from high perches in the pine trees, crowing raucously, scattering the other birds. The lawn is their turf now. Back and forth they comb for earthworms and grubs. They don’t hop; they walk. Actually, they swagger. I hadn’t seen any magpies for about 6 weeks. 

The early spring nesting and raising of chicks was done and then they left, but I don’t know where to. Apparently, magpies have a territory of 10-20 hectares (our property is just under one hectare). That’s an area 1km wide by 2km long. Our valley is about 1.5km wide at its widest point. I’m beginning to get a sense of the scale of area these birds call home. We are just one small part of it. It makes sense they move around to keep it defended, reasserting their right to the territory. Territories work, at least partially, on a use-or-or-lose it basis with birds. Now they’re back, staking claim here again. 

In the last few years, the kids would see the magpies on the lawn and tear outside clapping their hands and shouting, to scare them away. I guess they learned that from me. I hated seeing all the other birds scatter, so I employed whatever tactics I could think of. 

A good loud noise sends the magpies running. But you can’t repeat the noise too often or they get used to it, and pretty quickly learn it isn’t followed by harm. Clapping a pair of shoes together no longer works, neither does a loud rap on the window, stomping on the deck, or waving my arms and calling ‘hup, hup’ like you do when moving cows.

Magpies are three times the size of thrushes and blackbirds, positively giant compared to the even smaller sparrows. It felt unfair. I also had some unresolved childhood issues with magpies.

I grew up in the country, and we caught the school bus at the end of our road. Alongside our road was a railway line, and on both sides were paddocks. Grassy fields for miles. In the corner of the paddock by where we caught the bus was a huge macrocarpa tree. Every spring the magpies would nest there, and every spring they would defend their territory. 

Apparently small children pose an outsize threat to magpies. They would dive bomb us. Out of the tree they would come, straight for our heads. The best defence was having your backpack on your head. There was nowhere to hide. The only strategy was to run like the clappers all the way home. We were channelled down that road like the bulls in Pamplona. You didn’t turn and look to see if you were safe because everyone knows magpies like to collect sparkly things, and we’d all heard stories about magpies poking out children’s eyes.

The magpies here have never dive-bombed. Maybe they’re used to our constant presence. I haven’t tried to frighten the magpies away this year. I’m curious how long they’ll be around for. I hope they’re feasting on the cicadas that are emerging from the lawn, lessening the racket they’ll make in high summer. And there I go again, demonising some other creature. Both magpies and cicadas have been here longer than we have, and of course they must be in balance in this small ecosystem. Cicadas don’t bite or sting, and have their place in the food chain. They are a source of food for not just magpies, but every other bird here that feeds on insects. They are a source of food for kiwi as well. 

I just read Peter Wohlleben’s book ‘The Secret Network of Nature – The Delicate Balance of All Living Things’. He refers to the story of Gabi, a young girl that started feeding the crows in her neighbourhood. After a while, they began to bring her ‘gifts’, leaving pieces of glass, bone and small beads on the feeding table. 

Maybe magpies aren’t thugs at all. I know they collect shiny things, which is an aesthetic I can appreciate. Maybe they are just waiting for me to soften. I won’t go so far as to feed them—I did that once with a family of ducks which then took up residence on our deck and, let me tell you, two adults ducks and seven ducklings can produce a lot of poo—but I am going to consider them friends and neighbours, and send out an energetic welcome.