Magpies how to get rid of them?

Car99 · 20-02-2019 11:59pm #1

Hi,

Living in the country , recently we seem to have alot more Magpies around , for years we had alot of pied details, robins and the like frequenting the garden and patio area out back.
Since the arrival of the magpies thats all we seem to have bloody magpies 3 or 4 of em constantly around the place.

How can I get rid of them , should I just get em shot?

OpenYourEyes · 21-02-2019 12:29am

Car99 wrote: »

Hi,

Living in the country , recently we seem to have alot more Magpies around , for years we had alot of pied details, robins and the like frequenting the garden and patio area out back.
Since the arrival of the magpies thats all we seem to have bloody magpies 3 or 4 of em constantly around the place.

How can I get rid of them , should I just get em shot?

You should put up some nestboxes, plant some more cover shrubs and trees etc etc,and for open nestboxes put done chicken wire around them to avoid predation.

You're overestimating the impact of the Magpies. And if you get them shot more Magpies will move in, so it's a very very temporary solution. Try to do things that will work long term.

Bogwoppit · 23-02-2019 5:46am

Get a Larsen trap and you’ll dent their numbers fairly well.

GrumpyMe · 23-02-2019 7:22am

Bogwoppit wrote: »

Get a Larsen trap and you’ll dent their numbers fairly well.

Until their replacements turn up - and they will turn up sooner rather than later.

Bogwoppit · 23-02-2019 9:12am

GrumpyMe wrote: »

Until their replacements turn up - and they will turn up sooner rather than later.

Send them the same way too

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1 · 23-02-2019 9:36am

Bottom line is, it's pointless because Magpies do not have a detrimental impact on songbird numbers.

Pawwed Rig · 23-02-2019 9:38am

I like Magpies

Bogwoppit · 23-02-2019 10:20am

Ah yeah, apart from the egg stealing and chick eating bit they’re grand, love the noise they make too.

GreeBo · 23-02-2019 10:24am

Get one of these, we use them on the golf course and they are great... might scare everything away though...

magicbastarder · 23-02-2019 11:01am

Bogwoppit wrote: »

Ah yeah, apart from the egg stealing and chick eating bit they’re grand, love the noise they make too.

i hate songbirds because they eat the caterpillars of beautiful butterflies.

raptors predating other birds = nature. magpies predating on other birds = thuggery, seemingly.

i suspect the reason many people hate magpies is because they're bloody clever and it unnerves many people.

Grab All Association · 23-02-2019 11:06am

magicbastarder wrote: »

i hate songbirds because they eat the caterpillars of beautiful butterflies.

raptors predating other birds = nature. magpies predating on other birds = thuggery, seemingly.

i suspect the reason many people hate magpies is because they're bloody clever and it unnerves many people.

Superstition too. The priest would've told them the magpie never cried at the crucifixion of Jesus or that seeing one of them is bad luck nonsense.

magicbastarder · 23-02-2019 11:11am

another superstition i've heard is that irish people hate them because they arrived with cromwell. i suspect they were here long before that.

aaakev · 23-02-2019 11:20am

magicbastarder wrote: »

i suspect the reason many people hate magpies is because they're bloody clever and it unnerves many people.

Wouldn't say that at all, many people enjoy the song birds, magpies are vermin and just wreck the place.

I have feeders out the back, we had all sorts of finches, robins etc that used to come then the magpies arrived one year and the small birds disappeared. I put wire around the feeders but they were eventually torn off the tree from the magpies and crows. Larsen trap worked a treat, magpies gone amd song birds back. Iv shot 2 magpies in the garden since and that was a couple of years ago.

OP if ya can shoot them then do, if ya can trap them then do. What part of the country are you in? Could you shoot in your garden?

magicbastarder · 23-02-2019 11:34am

i have magpies in the back garden. some are building a nest in the big birch.
i also have wrens, robins, loads of sparrows, blackbirds, the odd goldcrest, the odd blackcap, etc. etc.

_Brian · 23-02-2019 11:39am

Car99 wrote: »

Hi,

Living in the country , recently we seem to have alot more Magpies around , for years we had alot of pied details, robins and the like frequenting the garden and patio area out back.
Since the arrival of the magpies thats all we seem to have bloody magpies 3 or 4 of em constantly around the place.

How can I get rid of them , should I just get em shot?

Trap them and dispose of humanly.

We had what seemed like a load few years ago, got a larcen trap and caught 17 mags.
It was amazing next year the increase in numbers of small birds without their nests being constant raided by mags.

They had started taking eggs from the chickens

See some about again so must dust off the trap.

OpenYourEyes · 23-02-2019 12:55pm

Magpies nest within 100 metres of my garden.

Magpies predated a Robin nest in my garden last summer.

Later in the year I caught and ringed 4 Robins in my garden (size: smaller than a tennis court) in a 24hr period, and a fifth remained unringed. Magpies impacted that breeding attempt, but the number of Robins in the garden/locality was not impacted. This happens up and down the country and Robins are still one of the most common birds we have. The same logic and lesson is true for countless other species.

I've had 25-30 species of songbird in my garden since the start of December. A suburban garden, in a housing estate, around half a tennis court in size. Magpies are present on a daily basis.

If you want to improve conditions for songbirds in your garden, trapping or shooting magpies would be a waste of your time.

Note that Magpies predating chicken eggs is a completely artificial scenario causing some bias for the earlier poster ...

Storm 10 · 23-02-2019 2:21pm

Living in Galway City and I have Blue Tits, Gold Finches Starlings Robins and Sparrows coming to the feeder I also have a daily visit from two Magpies who have never scared the birds off or to my knowledge killed any, the other half loves to see them there. Cannot believe the number of Gold Finches coming in for Niger seed sometimes I have counted 20 on the ground and 4 on the feeder guys on the ground taking the seeds that fall off the feeder they are very messy birds when eating.

kildare lad · 27-02-2019 6:20pm

Is there cats around your area, they'd have no bother killing them, just for fun. I seen it with my own eyes. Ive a fairly big garden and we leave one side of it wild , we dont cut or trim any branchs and its the perfect environment for the birds to fly in and out of going to the feeder nearby . Theres also loads of magpies pigeons and corvids as well and i havent noticed any less songbirds in the area.

Storm 10 · 02-03-2019 9:00pm

kildare lad wrote: »

Is there cats around your area, they'd have no bother killing them, just for fun. I seen it with my own eyes. Ive a fairly big garden and we leave one side of it wild , we dont cut or trim any branchs and its the perfect environment for the birds to fly in and out of going to the feeder nearby . Theres also loads of magpies pigeons and corvids as well and i havent noticed any less songbirds in the area.

Yes there are around 4 cats but they all have collars with bells if I'm there and see them I turn the hose on them

borderlinemeath · 17-03-2019 10:56am

We have magpies in the process of building a nest in one of our fruit trees. Since they started I haven't had to fill my bird feeders as the smaller birds are seemingly staying away. Normally our garden is a haven for birds and insects and I don't want these magpies right in the thick of it. Normally there's a few around, but where they've set themselves up is right in the flight path of my outhouse where I have swallows nesting every year. I'm not going to get a larsen trap or anything like that but I need to get rid of this nest and deter them from nesting so close.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1 · 17-03-2019 11:10am

borderlinemeath wrote: »

We have magpies in the process of building a nest in one of our fruit trees. Since they started I haven't had to fill my bird feeders as the smaller birds are seemingly staying away. Normally our garden is a haven for birds and insects and I don't want these magpies right in the thick of it. Normally there's a few around, but where they've set themselves up is right in the flight path of my outhouse where I have swallows nesting every year. I'm not going to get a larsen trap or anything like that but I need to get rid of this nest and deter them from nesting so close.

Deter them if you wish but check the legality of removing the nest.

OpenYourEyes · 17-03-2019 11:53am

Also note that it's the breeding season so the number of birds in gardens has dropped off dramatically in gardens right across the country, whether they have Magpies or not.

Correlation doesn't necessarily equate to causation.

borderlinemeath · 17-03-2019 12:19pm

Samara Early Key wrote: »

Deter them if you wish but check the legality of removing the nest.

From Birdwatching Ireland

⇒ What is the legal position in relation to the control of Magpie numbers?

Largely because Magpies eat the young of intensively reared gamebirds, the law states that an authorised person may kill them at any time of the year or destroy their nests. An authorised person would be the landowner or someone acting with the permission of the landowner. The use of poison is illegal in most cases and is not recommended as a method of control for Magpies, particularly in suburban circumstances. Care should be taken to ensure that it is indeed Magpies that are occupying a Magpie’s nest that is to be destroyed, as they are often used by other species.

I am actually surrounded by gun club lands that are populated by pheasants. They are still in the process of building it, we were watching them most of yesterday and they were filling it most of the day. I wouldn't touch it if there was eggs in it but it's still too early for eggs?

magicbastarder · 17-03-2019 4:15pm

i have a birch tree in the garden where magpies are building a nest, and i have my bird feeder not much more than 10m from the tree. activity at the bird feeder is normal.

Eddie B · 20-03-2019 7:23pm

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I'm almost certain that destroying any bird nest during the breeding season is illegal. The shooting of magpies and grey crows is allowd all year round under derogation. This does not include the destruction of their nests.

KevinCavan · 20-03-2019 7:26pm

Be careful one for sorrow two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy. You could ruin your life taking on these bastards!;-)

New Home · 20-03-2019 7:56pm

Eddie B wrote: »

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I'm almost certain that destroying any bird nest during the breeding season is illegal. The shooting of magpies and grey crows is allowd all year round under derogation. This does not include the destruction of their nests.

I'll admit I'm not familiar with that specific piece of legislation, but, by logic, I'd have thought that killing birds during their nesting period would be tantamount to destroying their nest (as their offsprings would likely starve/die of thirst/be prone to be attacked by predators, insects, etc).

bogman · 21-03-2019 11:35pm

You wont have to worry about Magpies or most other birds in the years to come, bird numbers have halved since the 1970's, country is sterilized, drove through county Kilkenny today, huge fields, few ditches, hedgerows slashed, roadside trees slashed, fly numbers decimated, worms facing the same dilemma, pesticides causing untold damage , roadside verges abound with litter, instead of getting rid of these birds, crows, songbirds too, ye should be more concerned with conserving and encouraging them with food in your gardens....
Charles Coughlan
Cork

Mantis Toboggan · 21-03-2019 11:41pm

Magpies are dirty rotten vermin. They seem to have taken over the countryside in the last 10 years. Very hard to shoot also as they're very smart so you may need to look for other solutions.

Sheepdish1 · 21-03-2019 11:58pm

I am always surprised that anyone who likes and feeds birds would despise a bird because it is a magpie. I think it is really unfair that the have such a negative image
that is mainly based on superstition. They are beautiful to look at, very interesting and extremely intelligent birds.

They are very complex and social birds. The “chatter” noise they make is a warning call to other magpies and usually means a cat is lurking nearby

I counted 12 in a tree recently at my house and there are two that come into my garden daily when I throw out scraps for the crows. They are building a nest near by I imagine.

I also put out seed for smaller birds and have sparrows, robins, blue tits, coaltits, blackbirds, finches etc. They hide in bushes and come out and feed on the ground and from feeders the same way if any other predator was around and with the same risks.

If it’s not magpies it is other birds of prey, cats or foxes. Small birds naturally have predators, only a tiny amount of birds that hatch even survive so I don’t think they have a huge detrimental affect. Many birds are nesting at the moment so may not be feeding as much as usual. Of course you can put measures in place to try stop them getting access to eggs such as nest boxes but it is also important to realise a lot chicks born don’t survive which is just nature

Sheepdish1 · 22-03-2019 12:04am

bogman wrote: »

You wont have to worry about Magpies or most other birds in the years to come, bird numbers have halved since the 1970's, country is sterilized, drove through county Kilkenny today, huge fields, few ditches, hedgerows slashed, roadside trees slashed, fly numbers decimated, worms facing the same dilemma, pesticides causing untold damage , roadside verges abound with litter, instead of getting rid of these birds, crows, songbirds too, ye should be more concerned with conserving and encouraging them with food in your gardens....
Charles Coughlan
Cork

Completely agree with this. Hedgerows and ditches being slashed and the wide use of pesticides means our little birds don’t have the correct food and nutrition to eat and die as a result. They need specific insects depending on species and pesticides are having a huge knock on affect. Butterfly populations are dwindling. It is just more noticeable to us as it happens to be an insect “we like”

bri007 · 22-03-2019 12:04am

Magpies are vicious little b&stards, I seen 3 of them last summer rip shrewd out of a pigeon outside my house, I tried to run them off but they kept coming back and attacking it. Seen the pigeon the next day in bits on the pathway! I don’t like magpies at all

Spanish Eyes · 22-03-2019 12:15am

bri007 wrote: »

Magpies are vicious little b&stards, I seen 3 of them last summer rip shrewd out of a pigeon outside my house, I tried to run them off but they kept coming back and attacking it. Seen the pigeon the next day in bits on the pathway! I don’t like magpies at all

I live in the city, long garden backing on to playing fields and lots of trees in that park too.

Have noticed over the last say four years, that other species no longer visit our garden much since the magpies took over. I wish there was a way to keep them out. They have virtually stopped the wonder evening blackbird song.

I have birdfeeders and so on but the magpies frighten the rest of them off most of the time I find. Maybe I am doing something wrong.

Was never a problem a few years ago.

Pawwed Rig · 22-03-2019 7:34am

bri007 wrote: »

Magpies are vicious little b&stards, I seen 3 of them last summer rip shrewd out of a pigeon outside my house, I tried to run them off but they kept coming back and attacking it. Seen the pigeon the next day in bits on the pathway! I don’t like magpies at all

Nature in all of its beauty and brutality. We don't hate lions for killing prey.

PooPooPooPoo · 22-03-2019 8:15am

Car99 wrote: »

Hi,

Living in the country , recently we seem to have alot more Magpies around , for years we had alot of pied details, robins and the like frequenting the garden and patio area out back.
Since the arrival of the magpies thats all we seem to have bloody magpies 3 or 4 of em constantly around the place.

How can I get rid of them , should I just get em shot?

There are a couple of options open to you really - using a Larsen trap would be fine but time consuming.
I would shoot them (with a slongshot, air rifle or an M60)

Markcheese · 22-03-2019 8:23am

It's funny how we are with 1 animal good, another bad
I like magpies, they are clever and adaptable (like most members of the crow family), they are scavengers and predators, and numbers seem to be increasing...
If there were Hawks hanging around my garden I'd be thrilled, loads of crows maybe not so thrilled..
I think I'd take most of the advice above, feeding and nesting boxs for small birds,
But I'd also get a larson trap ( maybe just borrow one from a gun club), you won't get rid of magpies, but you'll keep numbers down...

malinheader · 22-03-2019 8:34am

People complaining about the disappearance of smaller native birds and blaming the magpies for this. No word of the poison slurry that's being spread on every bit of land possible. The native worm must be nearly extinct. More detrimental than the magpies.

SlowBlowin · 22-03-2019 8:40am

bri007 wrote: »

Magpies are vicious little b&stards, I seen 3 of them last summer rip shrewd out of a pigeon outside my house, I tried to run them off but they kept coming back and attacking it. Seen the pigeon the next day in bits on the pathway! I don’t like magpies at all

Magpies are very intelligent, and do what they can to make a living. I must admit I don't like them in our garden, but they are no less vicious then some of my regulars, like the Pine Marten and Stoat. In fact in the bird kingdom the little innocent Robin, is amongst the most vicious, every year a good proportion of male robins are killed fighting. When two males start a decent squabble there is a good chance one of them will die.

A few years back I filmed one of our regular pine martens nearly catch a magpie, if you look he gets a mouthful of feathers and you see a feather float off (I was watching out the window)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuZU7WVKCtk

On a side note we have a lovely sparrowhawk in the valley which has become a magpie specialist, I have seen him several times chasing magpies over extended periods of time. He rarely visits my feeders, he just prefers to go for magpies.

To keep magpies out of our garden I just use a toy catapult, not anything that would harm them. They soon get the message and rarely visit, I have done this at several places and it always seems to work.

cd07 · 22-03-2019 9:56am

There's a great video of a very clever Sparrowhawk drowning a magpie on YouTube. Well worth finding it ! Just search Sparrowhawk drowns magpie!

berettaman · 22-03-2019 10:03am

A Larsen Trap is your only man.

Every year when the brood has hatched you can see a mob of magpies combing the ditches for other birds nests, 2 on each side and two up top.. Very efficient.

First year we started we took a lot of magpies out . , the songbird population thrived afterwards.

Do we need a few magpies around..yes do we need flocks of 10-15 ..no..It is all about balance..

SlowBlowin · 22-03-2019 10:04am

cd07 wrote: »

There's a great video of a very clever Sparrowhawk drowning a magpie on YouTube. Well worth finding it ! Just search Sparrowhawk drowns magpie!

Thanks for that, just watched it, definitely some intelligence being displayed there !!

loveisdivine · 22-03-2019 10:06am

The amount of people that think they have some right to control nature and mould it to their own desires is baffling.

magicbastarder · 22-03-2019 10:08am

yep; it's a good thing humans arrived on the scene to control nature, it was a mess till we arrived.

hawkwing · 22-03-2019 10:17am

loveisdivine wrote: »

The amount of people that think they have some right to control nature and mould it to their own desires is baffling.

We should save and feed rats and grey crows too.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1 · 22-03-2019 10:19am

Let's clear the area of Magpies, Sparrowhawks, Hooded Crows, and every other creature that might kill another. What an absolutely wonderful example of the lack of understanding of Nature, coupled with ignorance of the impact of predation on bird numbers.

I despair at times.

looksee · 22-03-2019 10:26am

I think the pine marten went for the magpie out of simple irritation. Bird hops around going 'look at me, look at me, I want to drink, would you ever move over, leave some of that food for me, I'm here, can you see me'.

berettaman · 22-03-2019 10:30am

loveisdivine wrote: »

The amount of people that think they have some right to control nature and mould it to their own desires is baffling.

The amount of people that think they can get through life without impacting nature in some way..

The minute that humans built a house, started to farm or built a road they were altering nature to suit their needs.

Vermin have to be controlled. I never said eradicated.

Do I control magpies, grey crows and foxes...yes
Do I feed song birds, pheasants and grow habitat...yes.

You have to be realistic.

malinheader · 22-03-2019 10:31am

Hedge cutting at wrong times, pesticides, weedkillers, natural habitats being destroyed, slurry and septic tanks not properly working. The list goes on but people never want to speak about the real reason why were losing so much of our native species. The salmon is a great example.

berettaman · 22-03-2019 10:35am

malinheader wrote: »

Hedge cutting at wrong times, pesticides, weedkillers, natural habitats being destroyed, slurry and septic tanks not properly working. The list goes on but people never want to speak about the real reason why were losing so much of our native species. The salmon is a great example.

Totally on the same page..

Hedge cutting, weedkillers and habitat are all part of the problem and have to be and are being addressed..just like the magpie.

magicbastarder · 22-03-2019 10:41am

berettaman wrote: »

The minute that humans built a house, started to farm or built a road they were altering nature to suit their needs.

does not compute. 'i built a house, therefore that justifies killing magpies'?

i work from home, and sit facing out onto the back garden. i'm currently watching a pair of tits comb the blossoms on the plum tree, presumably for insects, and about 15m away the magpies have made very good progress building their nest in my big birch.

Discodog · 22-03-2019 10:42am

berettaman wrote: »

The amount of people that think they can get through life without impacting nature in some way..

The minute that humans built a house, started to farm or built a road they were altering nature to suit their needs.

Vermin have to be controlled. I never said eradicated.

Do I control magpies, grey crows and foxes...yes
Do I feed song birds, pheasants and grow habitat...yes.

You have to be realistic.

Says the man named after a gun :pac:

And then the use of the V word. Class it as vermin & it's open season.

Posts like this belong on the shooting forum & have nothing to do with appreciating nature.

Larsen traps are cruel.

Magpies how to get rid of them?

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