Brazen Magpie Looting German Village

a.s.

a.s.

Valinor
Just an amusing story I thought our own Magpie might like.

I sort of admire the little bird's pluck--cheeky little devil--even though I'd be closing my own windows or putting up screens, I think!

LOL

A magpie living in a village near Berlin has advanced from street crime to brazen burglary, flying into people's houses, eating food from their tables and making itself comfortable on their sofas.


See the link for the rest of the story.

a.s.
 
LOL!! What a great article ... though I suspect Lobelia was behind this comment ... possibly overheard at the bowling Club during Bingo .. or do they play Bungo there *shrug* [;)]


"Now she flies straight into my living room through the window, eats my marzipan potatoes and chocolates on the table and sits on the sofa," said Krüger. "I put a pot of meat stew out on the terrace under a cover and she managed to get at that too."
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Next we'll hear Magpies taking silver spoons!


Great heads-up a.s.

Elven x
 
someone at moviemusic from South Adelaide, Australia wrote this to me:

Have you ever been swooped by a Magpie???
The last two weeks, I have been swooped 9 times on the way to and from the train station each day!!!

It's great fun for stategic thinking, looking out for the whereabouts of your own safety!!!!

After the first five or so swoops, you can hear them coming in your direction from behind!!!!

The young Maggies make the loudest noise as they swoop your heads, and the adults come straight past your head from behind like arrows being shot at you from a far away distance!!!

When I see them flying directly in front of me, I hold my Bible case in front of me in their direction and yell 'BACK OFF'.

Although, there aren't that many witnesses, although drivers have strange looks on their faces as they see me walking on road with my head looking up at the Gum Trees, looking out for Magpies, fearing for my life!!!
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You just can not imagine how funny I found the thought of someone holding up their Bible and yelling 'BACK OFF' to ward of *me*.


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(which are also present in New Zealand) can be quite aggressive, especially around nesting time. And they're big enough to do some damage! To compound matters, they often congregate in large numbers. Just down the road from us, there are usually 100 or so.

We're fairly fortunate, as we have a pair on our property that accept our presence (how gracious of them), and keep any other magpies away.

I've never tried the Bible case method, though :-)
 
...but since it's about magpie's I guess it's okay enough.

For English fans of Alan Lee: there's a post in Gaming and Collecting you might want to check out. I don't know if many people look at posts in that section and, if not, they might miss a good deal. (if it is a good deal?)
 
As a kid we had a nesting pair in the gum tree above our house. They would swoop us when we were playing in the backyard.

The trick was to grab an ice cream bucket and draw eyes on it, and wear it with the eyes facing backwards.
As a kid I prefered being bombed by Magpies than wear that helmet.

I love th Bible defense story ... though maybe they could put some of those glue on craft eyes on the front cover and just hold the good book up instead of waving it around [angelic]
though there might be a few questions and odd looks at Bible study time ...[shocked] [crazy]
 
Apparently it's the badly adjusted magpies that swoop a lot. Often they've been traumatised by something as nestlings, apparently (although I do wonder who did that research, and what terrible things did they do to innocent bird-children to find this out).

My Dad used to make us wear ice cream containers on our heads during swooping season. A fetching look for a young person I don't think.Being of a secular bent perhaps I'll try with the dictionary next time.
 
... to see which worked the best.

of course, not having any magpies around here, that 'we' really meant 'you'.

:-)
 
I could have asked my students to try out their books. We had a major swooping problem at my university. But hey, that would assume that students read (boom boom).
 
and in nesting season, if I walked my dog down the street near the rookery, there was usually one and sometimes several crows who would swoop at both of us.

David Quammen, the naturalist writer, has a hilarious essay on crows in his book Natural Acts : A Sidelong View of Science and Nature.
Crows are bored. They suffer from being too intelligent for their station in life. Respectable evolutionary success is simply not, for these brainy and complex birds, enough. They are dissatisfied with the narrow goals and horizons of that tired old Darwinian struggle. On the lookout for a new challenge. See them there, lined up conspiratorially along a fence rail or a high wire, shoulder to shoulder, alert, self-contained, missing nothing. Feeling discreetly thwarted. Waiting, like an ambitious understudy, for their break. Dolphins and whales and chimpanzees get all the fawning publicity, great fuss made over their near-human intelligence. But don't be fooled. Crows are not stupid. Far from it. They are merely underachievers. They are bored.
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I wonder if magpies are too?
 
used to give the dog a hard time ... [:(]
Though the dog was good natured, at first was a bit confused. I think he might have been pecked once or twice.
The dog, Nikoli, would bark at the birds if they swooped too low... Im sure there was some game going on after a while, but he kept them out of the yard ... well most of the time. They really are brazen birds! Very brave ... or very silly [;)]

Keep an eye out for your pup on your walks Annael.

Elven x
 
Do you think a string of garlic might work, too?

I love hearing stories about these birds...in this area it's the ravens. I heard a story from the Yukon where a particular raven would steal golf balls from someone's truck, fly to the nearest hill, land, and drop the ball; watch it roll down the hill, fly down to pick it up and start all over again.
 
Ravens and crows are noted for their intelligence (they've been known to make and use tools) but I haven't heard as many stories about the other corvids which include magpies and jays.

We have another corvid on the boards now, you know. carrioncrow. His/her post about the female dwarves in movie reminds me of a corvid mind. :-)
 
(apparently crows and ravens don't co-exist)

One day I was walking the pooch out in the middle of a big field when I heard a very distinct and musical "PONG!" right overhead, surprising the heck out of me as I'd thought we were all alone. I looked up and a raven was flying about 10 feet above my head. I've always wondered if he did that on purpose and if it was some kind of raven game.
 
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