"Adam Funk" wrote in message
...
I recently found that something had been digging around in one of my
vegetable containers; at first I figured it was a cat, but there was
no poo, & three copper plant tags had disappeared. I've seen magpies
around occasionally this year, & someone told me they like to take
shiny things back to their nests.

Comments, suggestions?

Well, magpies do like shiny things, so it's not beyond the bounds of
possibility. Try cutting up a bit of foil tray, poking it into the soil at
the same place. If it disappears, it is likely to be a corvid (not
necessarily a magpie) - crows and jackdaws will also steal shiny sparkly
things.
A woman I knew in my childhood had a pet jackdaw. He'd been injured in the
wild and couldn't fly properly. She had him/her for donkeys years and he
was free in the house and she could never open her jewellery box without him
hopping down and selecting a ring to take up to the top of the wardrobe.
She had to get on a stool occasionally to raid his stash of all things
shiny, including one day, her watch that she had taken off to have a bath,
forgotten to put it back on afterwards and found it gone!
She used to let the neighbourhood children in occasionally to look at
"Jacky" as we were so fascinated by the idea of having a wild bird loose in
the house and also by his amazing blue eyes. She told us that he could say
his name "Jack" and we believed it..as he clearly could ;-)
ISTR he lived about 20 years, but I may be wrong.

Tina