Friend or foe?

The Magpies are back. We haven't seen them for several years. Now we wake up to their squawking and flapping about in the the trees. Hoping for a small family, six young ones were seen walking along the hedgerow in the next door field looking for grubs and titbits and perhaps the odd vole. They come into the garden and lie in wait hidden near the bird feeders hoping to catch a young bird. A dead Blue Tit was found the other day. I always scare these birds away from the garden, there is enough open land around us for a whole army of Magpies!

As a child, Magpies were fairytale birds who stole jewellery and precious glinting objects through the windows of castles.