magpie visitor

[cimorene]

Thanks for all the comments, everybody.

A beautiful magpie has been sitting on the gazebo roof right outside the window next to our computers during the daytime recently - every day, sometimes multiple times. It hurries away when it sees us looking at it, but it does come back and hang out there. (I wonder what it's doing though: I don't think there's food there unless it's eating apples from the tree. Seems out of character. They are omnivores though, I guess. Maybe there are a lot of slugs/snails in the hops?)

I want to encourage it to hang out and be less afraid, so I was plannning to gather some shiny presents and leave them on the gazebo roof for it. A quick websearch says leaving food for them is a bad idea because it can disrupt their regular feeding habits and the natural populations in the neighborhood and that they are mainly insectivores, and they are surely finding plenty of those already... oh no, and now another search says repeatedly that there's no evidence that corvids/magpies are attracted to shiny objects!

They use strings, wires, etc to line their nests, but these are surely built in the spring? And anecdotally they are known to steal small smooth stones...?

Comments

[yvannairie]

This is more of a long-term thing, but planting things that grow decorative berries is a good way to attracti magpies in my experience. On the short term, tinsel does sound like a good potential gift. Maybe glass beads?

(I missed your original post, but my condolences :( Honestly times like this, it would be nice if having a grieving period was an acceptable thing to declare, just so you two could put all the worries on pause for a while. It's been one sort of mess after another, and I am, just... hoping all the best and that your luck turns soon.)

[cimorene]

I know right. The social worker meeting I was at when I got the news that she was going that day or the next resulted in me being given a list of places to call and applications to complete on my own in the next little while (while we're also trying to renovate a house and Wax has to deal with the estate).

Berries is a pretty good idea; we have a lot of space for them in the yard here for sure! We'll have to think about that next spring though when it's time for planting. But in the meanwhile I do think I'll try shiny stuff in the place where I've seen it hang out. From googling in Finnish people say that they especially like sunflower seeds and unsalted peanuts and suet. Although with nuts you'd want to be careful to not leave too many of them.

[yvannairie]

Putting out sunflower seed feeders is a good idea once it gets more wintry. During the fall, you can probably get rowan berries nearby (like... I steal mine from the library garden, lol) -- they're likelier to dry out than rot, and lots of birds other than magpies like them too.

Plus rowan berry garlands aren't terribly hard to make and you can hang them out as decoration :D

[cimorene]

Oh, you know, I've made FAKE rowan garlands but making real ones would be quite fun. I should go walking in the woods and pick some rowan berries!