Nature table: MAGPIE

Magpie (Pica pica)

This is a bird that most people recognise, with the black part of its plumage glowing iridescent green or purple in the sun, and with its long tail. The magpie is a member of the crow family, which groups it with the most intelligent birds in Ireland. Magpies are good at solving problems and adapting to new environments and, if you see a pair of them teasing a cat, it’s easy to believe that they have a malicious sense of humour. Despite this, magpies are not popular birds, and this is because of their habit of robbing song birds’ nests of eggs and young during the breeding season. Various scientific studies have been carried out on the long-term effect this has on the song-bird population and the results are contradictory — some studies conclude that the effects are significant, others that they are not. Magpies are supposed to have arrived in Ireland from Wales, in an easterly gale in 1676, though some ornithologists doubt this date.