As I was arriving home today, one magpie carrying a stick was followed by another magpie also carrying a stick. It reminded me of the wonderful quoteby T.H. White in Helen MacDonald’s ‘H is for Hawk’: ‘A magpie flies like a frying pan!’
It’s spring, and the nesting instinct is stirring in corvids. Earlier today, a Carrion Crow pulled large sticks from a plane tree and carried them to another one trying persistently to position them so that they would stay put in the very first start of a nest.
This year, the pair of magpies I saw in my street have moved tree and started a new nest on a tree on other side, not far from the old one. The old nest still stands proud, having miraculously survived the battery of storms we’ve had this winter. This is quite usual in Magpies, they will often build a new nest each season, sometimes on top of last years nest if trees are in short supply.
Bird Sketches 