Magpie Trapping Near The House at Le Gros Chigy.

In a previous post I mentioned that the Magpie was one of the birds we had seen at Le Gros Chigy. I didn't know some of the issues around this bird, which are reflected by the contraption below that we came across in a field just past the House at Le Gros Chigy. I just thought Magpies were very clever birds that like shinny things!

photograph by ChigyTweet

published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.

This shows a trap which we found in a field. The Magpie is in the centre compartment and attracts others which enter through one of the four doors. They are trapped as the door is released behind them by the their weight on the floor of the segment. This kind of trap also works for crows.

The photo is pretty unclear, so there are separate photos of a Eurasian Magpie and a trap which give a bit more detail.

The Magpie is not found in South Africa, or the Southern Hemisphere for that matter, although its widespread in the Northern hemisphere. I was therefore not aware of the fact that it is mainly seen as a pest. For once the conservationists and the hunters seem to have the same view, because one of the Magpie's foods is young birds and eggs.

photograph by Harakka parhaassa puvussaan

published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.

The bird watchers accuse the Magpie of decimating garden birds by preying on the nests, decreasing the number of young birds reaching adulthood. In the UK there is still discussion on the real impact of this on populations, but the fact that the numbers of Magpies have grown steadily supports the hypothesis. Although a counter hypothesis is that Magpie numbers increased with the number of cars, as the amount of road kill improved the food supply!

The hunters are even more worried because the Magpie effects the number of live game birds available at the start of the hunting season. The 30 million live game birds released from breeding farms are not effected by the Magpies but the wild birds are especially during the nesting phase. This is a powerful lobby of influential people so its interesting to see that the Magpies seem to have the upper hand.

The farmers feel that their livelihoods are effected by the Magpie who are omnivores and also eat fruit and cereals.

Therefore there's quite a widespread movement to eliminate or at least control/reduce the number of Magpies.

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In the United States the Magpie is protected as a migratory non game bird, but special conditions are in place allowing their elimination when they are found to be or about to be damaging agricultural outputs. In the UK complicated licensing and rules place constraints on the methods a trapper may use to trap Magpies. In France it appears that, so long as its your land, their are few restrictions.

The Magpies are normally attracted to the trap by placing suitable food or a live "bait bird " in the central compartment of the trap. In the case of the trap we saw the bait bird was very agitated and it didn't seem a very humane operation. One article I read, stated that it was not really inhumane as the bait bird was killed each time a bird was trapped, as the caught bird became the bait bird!