Magpie kills young blackbird

[taxman]

So now the magpie as got to kill another to make up for the one it lost.

 

Yeah, I felt a bit bad last year when a fox cub took a blackbird chick from my front garden. I nearly ran out and intervened...but it's nature.

 

We were watching a hoopoe nest in Lesvos last week when a snake went in it. Mixed emotions all round, some people thought it was great to see the snake.

[tinfoilhat]

Yeah, I felt a bit bad last year when a fox cub took a blackbird chick from my front garden. I nearly ran out and intervened...but it's nature.

 

We were watching a hoopoe nest in Lesvos last week when a snake went in it. Mixed emotions all round, some people thought it was great to see the snake.

 

I saw all sorts when I went to lesvos including the biggest spider I'd ever seen outside a pet shop.

[Waldo]

Which is more unfair to the blackbird?

 

Fairness doesn't come in to it, it's just a human concept, there's no such thing as fairness in nature, just survive or die, nature is brutal.

[lazarus]

I have always fed the birds by putting out peanuts etc. when I first moved in to where I live now over 45 years ago, I had Greenfinches, Great Tits, Blue Tits, Sparrows, Starlings visiting my veranda where the food was waiting for them, from sunrise to sunset the birds came BUT they have all long gone because of the terrible Magpies, this year I've only had just three sightings of Blue Tits taking food, now this points out something's wrong. I know cats are a problem but there's no more cats here than forty years ago, now Crows are filling the area as well as Wood Pigeons, these two species were never seen in suburban areas only in the countryside. It's time the Magpies were culled.

[Angela P]

This is what happens in nature,we all need foood,what did you have for dinner last night?

Was it necessary to be quite so unpleasant? It is replies like yours and others that put me off posting on Sheffield Forum more often than I do. I am aware that what I saw was nature taking its course and that all animals need food blah, blah, blah.

I thought it unusual enough to post as it was the first time I had seen it happen in my 70 years of life.

I chased the magpie off as I was hoping to save the blackbirds life, but as I said it was dead. I left it where it was and the magpie soon returned to it, but after pulling a few feathers off it it flew away and did not come back. I disposed of its body the next day so it died for nothing, so much for it being needed for food.

But as so many of you are at pains to point out, it is nature.

[charmer]

Was it necessary to be quite so unpleasant? It is replies like yours and others that put me off posting on Sheffield Forum more often than I do. I am aware that what I saw was nature taking its course and that all animals need food blah, blah, blah.

I thought it unusual enough to post as it was the first time I had seen it happen in my 70 years of life.

I chased the magpie off as I was hoping to save the blackbirds life, but as I said it was dead. I left it where it was and the magpie soon returned to it, but after pulling a few feathers off it it flew away and did not come back. I disposed of its body the next day so it died for nothing, so much for it being needed for food.

But as so many of you are at pains to point out, it is nature.

 

It may be reluctant to eat the dead bird as you had cruelly chased it away whilst it was about to eat. How would you feel if the next time you decide to tuck into a dead animal, someone much bigger and stronger than you ran at you screaming?

 

Your actions have probably caused another young bird to die.

[Waldo]

A couple of years ago, I saw a group of (around 10) male ducks gang raping a female duck. She was constantly attacked, pecked at, pushed under the water, all making a lot of noise of disturbance. This all happened in and around a pond in the Buxton Pavilion Gardens, so there were quite a few alarmed people around...

 

It's curious, how I kind of felt an impulse to protect her; to shoo away the nasty male ducks; yet, to do so, would be to interfere with the natural process. To apply human morality and ethics to nature. To apply the standards of human society, to duck society. Is it right or wrong to do so?

[woodmally]

Just heard a terrific commotion outside. I went to investigate and saw a magpie in our garden with a young blackbird in its beak, the parents going frantic around it. I chased it away and it dropped the bird but it was too late, it was dead.

I have never seen this before, I knew that magpies took baby birds out of nests but not one of this size, it was almost full grown. sickening.

 

I would avoid any nature programmes if I was you. Its life I'm afraid. My cat attacked a small bird that sadly died and we tried to stop her. We couldnt tell the cat off as it was in her nature to do that.

[Eater Sundae]

I would avoid any nature programmes if I was you. Its life I'm afraid. My cat attacked a small bird that sadly died and we tried to stop her. We couldnt tell the cat off as it was in her nature to do that.

 

Many years ago I recall seeing a cat basically beating up a small bird in order to teach its kittens how to do it. It was doing enough to keep the bird subdued, but not enough to kill it, so that the kittens could have a go as well. This went on a good ten minutes. I felt sorry for the bird, but thought it best to leave them alone.