On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 22:22:23 -0000, "ned" wrote:

Colonel Bloomer wrote:

big snip

Interesting points and quite feasible. However I don't wear it, in
my
garden the mags live happily side by side with the other birdies and
I
cant recall the last time I saw a bird of prey here, so not that
common I'd guess.

Magpies are corvids (crow family) and are scavengers. At nesting time
their opportunistic instincts take over and they thieve any eggs and
fledgelings they can find. Whether that equates to happy co-existance
is a matter of debate. :-))

Opportunistic and actively seeking out are completely different
issues, certainly in my garden the mags will not actively seek out
birds nests or chicks. Last year we successfully saw blackbird and
blue tit chicks leave the nest.

I think this is a bit like the hedgehog cull fiasco on the Uists. Yes
of course hedgehogs, like most wildlife will eat eggs if it should
chance upon them, but they don't go out of their way to steal eggs.