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[maggiebee]

Was out painting a fence today when I heard a very loud bird call. Took me a minute to locate it, but it was a magpie sitting in a tree. First time I have ever had one in my garden to my knowledge. Not sure if I'm pleased or not as I believe they prey on small birds.

[bunkmoreland]

unfortunately, th.ey will do that as I have witnessed. Our magpies have been here a long time,before us actually. We all muddle along together. Our gorgeous much missed baby fought a running battle with them and kept them from doing too much damage. We actually put out all scraps to feed them, they help us that way! They will eat anything!

[somethingwicked]

Magpies can be a real pain. They are picking on one of my cats and literally harass him in the garden. And I can't do anything about it!

[rowanwitch]

They are very intelligent, I used to put dry dog food out for them with a dish of water just to watch them dunk it. They also queued up every morning waiting for me to empty my slug pubs, marinaded slugs = rather unsteady magpies. Eventually if I didn't come out early enough one would tap on the utility room door.

[waterboatman]

They are indeed very smart birds. They have to survive just like all of us on this planet.

[rowanwitch]

They are incredibly good at it too

[douglas9401]

Psycho birds, cowardly thugs of the feathered world.

[DarceyK123]

We have quite a few, noisy ***.

[Cloverjo]

I often see magpies in my garden. I still have lots of small birds around the feeder and the magpies don’t bother them.

[maggiebee]

Ah well, live and let live. Just so long as they leave my wee blue tits alone they will be more than welcome to some food.

[rowanwitch]

They will take baby tits from the nest. The trick is providing plenty of easier food.

[youngmafbog]

We have four Magpies living in the immediate surrounding and about 20 ruddy seagulls. We now get no small birds they have all been frightened away by both the Magpies and the Seagulls. Occasionally we seem to get a couple of crows but that is about it.

The Seagulls are worse than the Magpies though. One once tried to attack our 45Kg Boxer. It caught him unawares the first time, second time it wasnt so lucky, feathers everywhere.

[Chipchopper]

What I tend to do with magpies is scare them away when I see them in the garden, in the hope that their visits will become less frequent and make them feel weary about paying future visits.
Clapping and waving usually has the desired effect.
I figure that the less time they spend in the garden, the less time they will have to learn the whereabouts of nesting boxes etc.