Nature Diary...Magpies welcome!

Today has been an absolutely beautiful day. Again today some seeds were sprinkled on the balcony  wall, with some cake crumbs sprinkled in with them this morning. It wasn't long before a  Magpie arrived and started to feed, followed in 
a few minutes by another one.
Then the Herring Gull flew in and started to scoff the cake crumbs, and the Magpies retreated.
I went out on to the balcony and carefully swept away all the remaining cake crumbs and sprinkled a lot more bird seed on the wall..
Indoors, a cup of early morning tea in my hand, I sat indoors and waited and watched, and within no more than 3 or 4 minutes two Magpies arrived and fed hungrily on the bird seed. Then the Gull arrived, looked down at the bird seed, and glided gacfully away, probably thinking "Hmm. No cake. Pity."
The same two Magpies returned from where they'd waited, 6 or 8 feet away, and from then on throughout the rest of the day, they flew in and out until late afternoon, demolishing the birdseed ( which I kept topping up) and then they were gone.

I am very hopeful that they will return tomorrow as one year they were nesting nearby, fed from the seed left out for them in the same way they did today, and then they brought 3 of their very small youngsters to feed!  And they kept bringing them regularly, day after day! And the babies were so adorable, and it was wonderful to see how lovingly the parents tended to them. They were bigger, stronger birds when finally the daily routine started to end, but it left me with a love for Magpies ever since. I hope they bring  some more Magpie babies to feed this year.