Devils and Angels

In years gone by the magpie a member of the crow family was a rare sight. They are a beautiful large bird with exceptionally fine plumage of black, white and blue, their beauty concealing a violent and menacing disposition. Their diet consisted of worms, beetles and carrion. However, as our roads became much busier due to the ever-increasing amounts of traffic, so too did the amounts of roadkill.  This led to a marked increase in the numbers of magpies due to having a regular supply of fresh meat to rear their ever-hungry nests of young, but their taste for live food came much later.

Our beautiful, collared doves are the first to build their nests in early spring.  Close by the magpie watches the coming and going of the birds.  They will now start to build their own nests to coincide with the hatching of the young doves.  This is done for a purely sinister reason, which is to feed their own young with a plentiful supply of dove chicks.  As the season progresses, they will raid other nests, our beautiful songbirds the thrush, blackbird, dunnock, robin, goldfinch, and tit family. In fact no birds are safe, but they do tend to favour the plump nestlings of the doves and woodpigeons.  As their own chicks mature, they will take larger prey.

During the late 1950’s and 60’s it was thought that the collared doves were in demise. However, in the mid 1970’s in an isolated area, which was a disused RAF encampment they were in abundance, later spreading to many distant areas.  Their success at this time was due to the fact that there were very few magpies, in fact they were a very rare sight.

Magpies hunt in groups, they will mob other birds making a loud chattering noise, and their greeting is invariably a ‘chorus of hate’. The shriek of the blackbirds mingles with the small voices of the blue tits as they raise the alarm of the ‘swearing of the magpies.  They will take full eggs, young hatchlings or larger chicks as they prepare to fledge.  I have even witnessed them attack, kill and eat sick or injured birds and animals.

The ’angels’ of this story are the members of the pigeon family.  They have a unique way of rearing their young to combat their losses earlier in the year.  They can make a rich green soup in their crop, whether feeding on grain or a discarded take away meal, enabling them to rear chicks over the year and throughout all seasons.

The best time to see the woodpigeon is in the autumn when they will gorge themselves on the fallen acorns.  They will eat this ready food supply until they can hardly waddle or even take off.  Its sleepy coo is a pleasant sound in the summer woods and its autumn and winter flocks are a most impressive sight.

Woodpigeons are a large heavy bird with dusky pink feathering to its chest, they have white striped markings on either side of their neck and a bar of white on their wing feathers called remiges which you will see as they take off distinguishing them from others in the pigeon family.

This delightful and clever bird is persecuted by farmers and shootists alike. In general, these wonderful birds go unnoticed, unstudied, and unsung.  It would seem that any members of the pigeon family are not readily welcomed onto the garden bird feeding table.  However, during the first world war due to their unsurpassed intelligence, they used carrier pigeons to carry messages across the battlefield, flying under heavy gun fire and bombardment they brought vital messages back from the front line, saving many lives. Many of these wonderful birds were killed. Over many decades I have thoroughly enjoyed studying their remarkable and intricate lives.

On one occasion whilst ambling along the canal bank I saw a male woodpigeon with a damaged leg alight on the opposite side.  He rested for a while then went down to a muddy pool near to the water. He began to adhere the cool wet mud to his swollen leg, then attached grass root fibres to it.  After resting again, he returned to apply more mud and fibres. He had laboured long and hard to achieve his goal, this whole process lasted for several hours.  In doing so, this injured bird had made a wonderful mud cast, hence repairing his troublesome limb.

What a truly remarkable fellow he is.