Magpies On The Rampage In Our Garden.

The number of magpies in our postcode has soared from high to ridiculously high. They are slaughtering songbirds with impunity and in huge numbers. Our own personal blackbird chicks have fallen prey to these scavengers.

Drawn into our area by overflowing bins outside takeaways, their principal diet now seems to be eggs and nestlings.

They are cunning and highly intelligent. I have watched them search a garden or guttering with huge precision, they have literally taken out quite a variety of species which were previously common.

They are aided and abetted in their butchery by the introduced grey squirrel which has also increased in massive numbers along with a decline in a long list of songbirds.

We moved into our house in 1975. We could go months without ever seeing a magpie. Today ...

Several years ago, I contacted the council pest control people who admit that these birds are vermin and to the damage that they inflict on songbirds but the council apparently does not approve of culls.