May 2004

Parents; it's 7:00 a.m. Do you know where your kids are?

If you are a Magpie, you certainly do.
Magpies are the noisy, aggressive and dominant dwellers in the yard. They attack and raid other bird nests and make raising a family of Robbins or Quail a real problem. Magpies are also beautiful. Shiny black feathers cover a fluffy white chest. Long tail feathers iridescent in the sun. A thick strong bill and piercing black eyes made for glaring at the neighbors.

From the time they start nesting the glaring gets even worse. Their unfriendly attitude turns into outright hostility. Squawking and swooping at any anyone who gets too close, they scare the heck out of our resident gamekeeper (Hunter). He yowls (as only Hunter can, even when he is happy), and scuttles around the yard with the Magpies in pursuit. Sometimes Hunter performs his own act of defiance and lays down under a table. The Magpies strut around on top, fluttering back and forth shouting their outrage. It makes for noisy mornings or evenings, but at least I know where to find Hunter; it's where the racket is. Magpies protect their nest for good reason.

The nets is a giant brush pile, worthy of a forestry merit badge. Sticks and chucks of grass become a huge wart near the top of a tree. The resulting structure would probably support a square dance, and it needs to be big. When the kids hatch, its gotta be crowded. Two huge adults, whipping tail feathers around (oops sorry about that), getting their beaks into everything and a posse of kids who become voracious teenagers almost overnight. No wonder the parents are irritable. The kids leave the nest early and I certainly understand why.

It could be the Calcutta-slum living conditions, or just the Detroit-subway racket; whatever the reason, they flutter over the side before they can fly. The kids spend the next few weeks scampering, hopping and jumping around in the brush and trees. Woe be to anyone or anything that comes into this 'hood. Until now the parents had been rather friendly... in their own way. With the kids on the ground, the protection squad becomes a mafia.

Hunter become persona non gratis anywhere. Billy gets the swooping treatment (I think he kind of likes the attention). They even dive at me (when I'm not looking). I like to ride the lawnmower around near the nest just to show them who owns this forest. I pretend I could evict them at any time. When Billy and I wander close to where the kids are hiding in the trees, the male gets even angrier. He jumps around close, to shout at me. The male demonstrates his might by bashing his beak against the tree; nipping off little pieces and twigs. I'm positive I wouldn't want him to use that beak on me.

But it's kind of an oxymoron. The more noise the parents make to keep us from bothering the kids, the easier it is to find the kids. Kind of like the Price is Right TV show. What's behind door number three? Just wander down the row of trees, when the raucous confusion reaches it's peak, then that's the tree. Sure enough, here's one of the kids now, frozen in place, trying to pretend he is an apple. A little further and we reach another magic spot. Aha! Here the rest of the family hides, pine cones with tail feathers.

ML Taylor, 2004

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Dad checking out the intruders and sounding the alert.