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Magpies

greebo01

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
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Sep 24, 2004
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Don't know if this is really fortean, but....

the other day I was driving about four miles on a ring road round the city I live in (Northern England). Leaving my drive I saw a pair of magpies on a wall, who flew off at the sight of the car; fine.

About half a mile down the road, another pair flew over as I passed. Then at about a mile, another pair. Then another slightly further.....altogether seven pairs of magpies flew over us in a four mile journey. My son who was with me at the time saw them all too; by the end we were expecting them.

The odds against so many pairs happening to cross my particular path in a short distance seem pretty high, but I don't know. It was a linear journey, so unlikely to be a flock (if there is such a thing) Anyone have an explanation? Does it need one? :?
 
Because they are birds that mate for life, you rarely see them together when you might expect - in the spring and summer. That's because the female is usually sitting on the nest then, and the male is out hunter-gathering. Once the young have flown, by quite late on in the summer often, then the magpie seniors enjoy their own 'quality time' This is probably what you saw, although seven is an unusually large number ....

By the way, magpies are often found in greater numbers in 'suburbs', parks, public gardens and on well kept private grounds around commercial/industrial estates etc., as opposed to out in the the totally rural areas of the country. If you live in one of the above- type areas, you are far more likely to see them anywhay.

Out in rural areas, they are on an equal par with foxes as being 'public enemy no.1' and bounties are often handed out to persons who shoot the greatest numbers. This is probably another reason why, magpies being intelligent birds, you rarely see them out in the countryside.
 
Abarine said:
One for sadness, two for mirth;
Three for marriage, four for birth;
Five for laughing, six for crying:
Seven for sickness, eight for dying;
Nine for silver, ten for gold;
Eleven a secret that will never be told.

That's not the version I know ...

one for sorrow, two for joy
three for a girl, four for a boy
five for silver, six for gold
seven for a secret never to be told ...


only someone told me that's a sneezes rhyme :?
 
Lobelia Overhill said:
That's not the version I know ...

one for sorrow, two for joy
three for a girl, four for a boy
five for silver, six for gold
seven for a secret never to be told ...


only someone told me that's a sneezes rhyme :?

Eight for a wish, nine for a kiss
Ten for something never to be missed.


Although I was always told that seeing magpies was an omen- what was going to happen depended on how many you saw.
 
ive noticed that the majority of birds in manchester seem to be magpies

dunno why tho

maybe thats where make em :D
 
melf said:
ive noticed that the majority of birds in manchester seem to be magpies

dunno why tho

maybe thats where make em :D

Bah, secret manufacturing plant foiled!
 
Hecate - thanks for the useful information; I do live in an urban area and see quite a lot of magpies generally (which of course I always acknowledge with "good morning general"). What threw me slightly was the odds against so many pairs deciding to fly over just when we happened to be passing?

Raya - yes, I always thought magpies were an omen, but what can I expect for fourteen I wonder?
 
Various other versions include:-

One for sorrow, Two for mirth
Three for a wedding, Four for a dirth (death)


Eight for heaven, Nine for hell
And ten for the devil, his own sel'


Five for rich, Six for poor,
Seven for a bitch, Eight for a whore,
Nine for a burying, Ten for a dance,
Eleven for England, Twelve for France.



None of them seem to go up to fourteen so if I were you Greebo, I'd just asume you have seven lots of mirth/joy coming your way.
 
A couple of pairs seem to live very nearby as they are frequently in the front garden. I never fail to greet them and don't look forward to the day when one of the couples is broken.
 
Apparently, magpies belong to the same genus as crows, rooks, ravens and jackdaws ( and I 've forgotten the name of it!) but they all display a greater intelligence than other wild birds. There was an experiment a few years ago by a leading ornithologist to see if they could be taught to speak, like parrots, as they have a gift of mimricy. I never found out what the results of that were - anyone else?

I have to say that a talking magpe would be one of my top choices for a pet - I think they are lovely and I feel that if they could speak, it wold be worth listening to! (I'd have to hide all my glittery jewellery though!)

As an aside about birds, where have all the garden birds gone this autumn and winter?? In North Cumbria they all seem to have disappeared from our gardens and hedgerows. In spite of putting out all the usual nuts, seeds, bacon rinds, coconuts etc., they remain uneaten and have be thrown away as they just go rotten. My neighbours all report the same thing and it's puzzling all of us. It seemed to start in mid-October ..... does anyone have any clues ??
 
There's a pair (or two) of magpies that live near us and they come into the garden every day looking for the food that I put out for the lickle birdies, I always say "good morning" to them, like you're supposed to, to ward off the evil eye or whatever it is they give you ... I swear they know I'm in the kitchen waving so they take it in turns to swoop down and strut around the grass ...
 
hecate said:
Apparently, magpies belong to the same genus as crows, rooks, ravens and jackdaws ( and I 've forgotten the name of it!) but they all display a greater intelligence than other wild birds. There was an experiment a few years ago by a leading ornithologist to see if they could be taught to speak, like parrots, as they have a gift of mimricy. I never found out what the results of that were - anyone else?

Genus is Corvus I think.

I've heard something about them being taught to speak. Mynah birds belong to the same family and I'm pretty sure that I've read that they can be taught to talk as well.
 
Abarine said:
I'm reminded of the "Counting Magpie" or "Counting Crows" nursery rhyme...

http://www.shades-of-night.com/aviary/rhyme.html

One for sadness, two for mirth;

Speaking of sadness/bad luck, does anyone have any other 'rituals' they perform when they encounter a magpie to avoid bad luck? An old friend (I picked this up too for a while) would salute the magpie. Odd thing to do while driving down the M40 I must admit! Another friend would HAVE to find and touch (earth themselves?) something green. Links in with what Greebo and Lobelia noted above.

Does it have to be a lone magpie?
 
One for sorrow...

When we got back home after spending Xmas 'oop North' the front room was covered in soot and there was a huge pile of soot in the grate. We'd had the chimney swept a recently so we were at a loss to explain it.

The next morning the cause became clear. Bolt upright, staring out from the grate was a dead magpie. Wings outstretched, eyes open, chest inflated - as if it had died in mid-flap.

We figured it fell in the chimney and died of a heart-attack panicking to get out. Not uncommon - I know, but it was the posture it landed in the grate in that got me - quite poignant.
 
Cavynaut said:
Genus is Corvus I think.

I've heard something about them being taught to speak. Mynah birds belong to the same family and I'm pretty sure that I've read that they can be taught to talk as well.

I haven't read it but I've heard it! :D They can have quite a vocal range of different sounds!
 
Whatever the reputation Magpies have in Englnad they seem to be completely dispised in Ireland, which is a shame they seem to have this reputation because of the false belief that they are the cause of the decline in the song bird population. Most people still prefer to believe that magpies kill more small birds that cats despite the numerous surveys carried out by the RSPB showing that cats in fact kill far more small birds and fledgelings. I suppose its because the magpies take the small chicks directly from the nest that gives them this terrible reputation. David Attenbourough had a fantastic wildlife on one half hour about Magpies (set up as kind of a mock trial with the magpie in the dock) before don't know where you might get a copy of it. Fantastic Birds and extremely intelligent.
 
punychicken said:
Speaking of sadness/bad luck, does anyone have any other 'rituals' they perform when they encounter a magpie to avoid bad luck? An old friend (I picked this up too for a while) would salute the magpie. Odd thing to do while driving down the M40 I must admit! Another friend would HAVE to find and touch (earth themselves?) something green. Links in with what Greebo and Lobelia noted above.

Does it have to be a lone magpie?
I always salute single magpies. Pairs or bunches are apparently okay. :)

I think there are so many magpies about because they are carrion eaters and there is more and more carrion on the roads for them. :(
 
I once saw a group of Magpies harrowing a rabbit , is this common?
 
Err, pedant alert: not actually genus. The family is Corvidae (jays, crows & magpies). 'Magpie' has little taxonomic integrity (in North America, f'rinst, the two magpie species are both genus Pica.)

And yeah, since many (most?) of the members of that family share traits of being large, gregarious, garrulous, intelligent, skilled at mimicry, a fondness for picking up and hiding found objects (including human posessions), etc, etc. it's certainly understandable they figure prominently in superstitions and myths almost everywhere they occur.

Wonk note No. 2: the 'Mag' is a shortened form of Margaret (Maggie the Pie), part of the same British tradition that spawned several bird names...Jack the Daw, Robin Redbreast...
 
Magpies can learn to "speak",when I was a kid a friend of mine had a jackdaw that could say quite a few words.
They do take chicks and eggs, but like all predators they can only take what is available,it all balances out in the end.
Have seen up to 13 together in one place !.Family groups can number quite high,suspect that the 13 I saw was probably the first and second brood of a pair,if food suppy is good they dont need to wander off too far.
Have also noticed in the last 15 or 20 years that crows around here are frequently getting white or grey patches mainly on the tops of the wings,only crows not rooks,and it seems to becoming more common,maybe black and white crows in a hudred years time,who knows !
The "old folk" used to salute single magpies,and say "Good morning Sir".
 
I don't think its possible that a rabbit in perfect health would have any problems with magpies considering that they are never far from their warrens and would be more than capabable of out running a magpie (strong flyers but not particularly quick) but i'm sure Magpies would have no trouble dealing with a sick or dying rabbit. If you have seen it happen before then there is no question that it happens but the rabbit was probably not in the best of health.
 
didnt see em catch it though , just sort of chase and dive at it , in the woods not on open ground
 
"Mobbing" (where a bunch of say, warblers harrass a hawk or owl) is certainly a fairly common occurance. Maybe (yeah, I know how weird this sounds) the magpies felt the rabbit was a threat for some reason. It is curious.

Do you recall what time of year it was?
 
filterz said:
filterz said:
I once saw a group of Magpies harrowing a rabbit , is this common?

Anyone ever seen this?

This is my first post so hello to all.
There is a large magpie population in the area where I live. A few years ago a friend and I were having a few beers in the garden on a warm summers evening when there was an almighty racket from the garden next door which sounded like two cats having a scrap. When we looked over the fence we were surprised to see a magpie going to-to-toe (or claw-to-beak) with next doors cat. It was one hell of a sight and the magpie definitely had the better of the cat. We watched for about ten minutes until the next door neighbour came out to save his cat – spoilsport.
On another occasion last year, I’d just left the house for work and was just getting into my car when a colleague called me on my mobile phone. As I sat in my car talking to him, a squirrel came pelting around the corner from a side street and straight past my car. A couple of seconds later, in hot pursuit, came a magpie which was sort of half running and half flying. I lost sight of them when the squirrel ran through a gate and into a neighbour’s front garden so I don’t know how that one panned out.
 
Welcome, Zimbra! :) Neat story. I wish we had magpies around here (eastern Ontario); I've only ever seen them in Alberta, and they seemed amazingly exotic to me (much to my cousin's amusement).
 
I once observed two robbins flogging and pecking a squirrel. The squirrel, trying to escape, ran right under the wheels of my car. Crunch. I felt so bad. :(
 
Years ago, my mother had a cat who was a famous hunter, There was nothing he wouldn't tackle. One day he caught and killed a magpie, which, being magpie fans, did upset us a little, but we are also cat fans too, and unfortunately, that's what cats do and nothing will stop them.

However, as magpies mate for life, the remaining bird stalked that cat to the day he died. We lived at that time in the grounds of a large house (my mother was the bursar of a large private school) and the grounds were a haven for all manner of wildlife (and some pretty Fortean stuff went on there as well, I can tell you!)

It was a common sight, for years afterwards, to see Tomalin (the cat) running at full pelt in through the cat flap, pursued by the mate, scolding, screeching and making repeated swoops over the hapless cat.
Perhaps, like elephants, magpies have long memories, to add to their other talents?

The bird did it's damndest to ensure that Tomalin's life was made a misery - and for a hunting animal, I'm sure there is nothing worse than a large bird hovering over you wherever you go, letting every other creature in the area know exactly where you are!!
 
excellent , Magpies are not only pretty they are hard as well
 
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