Mr Magpie

Travelling my usual routes this week I have noticed that the magpies are now paring up.  The family groups that have been in evidence until now are breaking up.  The magpie has been allowed to increase in numbers due to its adoption of a suburban life style and as the year turns they move out from the towns into the countryside.  These birds may be tolerated in towns but in the countryside they do massive damage to the song bird population, especially the shy and diminutive song thrush.  These little thrushes don't have the strength or will power to fight off a magpie attack on their nests, unlike their larger cousins the mistle thrush who fight aggressively and with determination to defend their nests.  Changing agricultural practice is often given as the reason for the decline of the song thrush but in my book there is a direct correlation between the decline of the song thrush and the rise of the magpie.  When I was young more of the countryside was under the protection of gamekeepers and the magpie population was well controlled.  Yes I know that any protection of the song thrush was accidental as the gamekeepers were only acting to protect game bird chicks, but the point remains there were more song thrushes.  As for the detrimental effects of changing agriculture,  in the case of some species this may be a cause, but with the increase in the area of the oil seed rape crop since my childhood the population of song thrushes should have at least held steady.  I say this because the dense canopy of an oil seed rape crop makes an excellent breeding ground for slugs and snails and I have watched thrushes of both species and blackbirds dashing into and out of the crop collecting food for their nestling's.   While I don't believe in the extermination of any species I do think that a much smaller magpie population would make the recovery of the population of the song thrush and other small song birds possible.