On 28/10/04 0:41, in article 1098920481.SYCpxUaJw2LRjT9rPIfI3A@teranews,
"Reece" wrote:

I hope I do not get banished for being slightly off topic but how can I
discourage Magpies from coming into my garden. There are more than 20 nest
in the trees bordering my property but they are on conservation ground.
At any one time during the early morning there can be as many as 12 Magpies
on my roof.
They are bullying the small garden birds I am sure.


Magpies do sometimes congregate in what amount to flocks but are pretty
quarrelsome, I think.
They will take other birds' eggs and even baby birds and yes, before someone
denies it, I have seen both happen.
The only answers are to keep dislodging the nests if that's physically
possible, to shoot them, which we do here when the odd pair fly in, or use
the old method of putting a poisoned egg into some of the nests if you can
reach them. Trapping doesn't seem to be very successful, from what I'm told.
However, if all these methods are not available to you because of the
conservation issue, I think you're stuck with them unless you can persuade
the administrators of the territory to allow culling of the magpies.
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove the weeds to email me)