I’ve become fascinated with magpies over the last year, since I moved into a house with magpies living in one tree alongside blackbirds and pigeons in the other. In between trying to stop them killing the blackbirds, attacking the pigeons and bullying my cat I’ve started to realise what complex creatures they are. It took a long time for me to establish that the cat was under my protection but eventually they left her alone. I was getting really worried about her capacity to exist outside before this though as two or three magpies would stalk her round the garden (as well as ripping up my lawn whenever I tried to reseed it). Their behaviour was very coordinated in a way I found immensely thought provoking, including eventually recognising my attempts to shoo them away when they were harassing my cat. Is there a more startling expression of this coordination than a magpie funeral?
See also this perfect depiction of what I saw magpies doing to my cat on a daily basis, with the exception that it’s much more menacing when there’s two or three of them and the cat is ancient and arthritic.
Mark Carrigan 