Gangsters of the air

Magpies are jerks.

They'll eat baby songbirds, harass pets, and chase birds away from feeders. You'll see them strutting along the street flashing their black, white and blue zoot-suits everywhere, a swagger in their tail and usually one or two cronies by their sides, yipping and yapping with casual confidence. They're like gangsters, except with feathers instead of fedoras.

Which is why I've always found them hilarious to watch.

St. Albert's Barb Freysteinson says she's a fan of them as well. "I love them," she says, and regularly feeds them peanuts in her yard. "I don't understand why everyone hates the poor little critters."

Magpies are among the most common birds in St. Albert, and can be instantly recognized by their black, white, and iridescent blue feathers. They also have exceptionally long tails that they flare and flex to brake in flight.

They're also really chatty, says Jocelyn Hudon, curator of ornithology at the Royal Alberta Museum, nattering away at all hours with a wide array of yips, yaps and whistles. The kids can be particularly annoying in the summer, he adds.

Magpies have adapted extremely well to city environments, Hudon notes, but were originally animals of the plains, picking bugs off the backs of migrating bison. Their numbers crashed when the bison disappeared, but bounced back with the start of cattle farms and trash piles in cities. Scavengers, they'll eat a wide variety of grains, fruits, seeds, bugs and carrion.

North America has two types of magpie, although you won't see the yellow-billed magpie outside of California. Here, our magpies are all black-billed. Edmonton has been known to have the occasional "ghost" magpie as well — a magpie with a genetic quirk that makes its black bits grey.

The magpie's flashy suit is likely used to attract mates, Hudon says. Their iridescent sheen requires precise control over feather growth, which only the healthiest of birds can pull off. The white spots on the wings might act as flags with which to signal others.

Like most members of the crow family, Hudon says, magpies are pretty smart. They have a complex series of calls used to warn others, chat with friends or mutter to themselves. They work in groups to get food, with one often distracting a dog or cat as another moves in to steal its lunch.

They even hold "funerals." The Cornell Lab of Ornithology reports that, upon sight of a dead magpie, a live magpie will start calling loudly, soon drawing a swarm of up to 40 loudly squawking mourners for a wake. After about 10 minutes of wailing and gnashing of beaks, the whole mob will disperse and fly off silently.

But they can also be pretty dumb, Hudon says: magpies will often try to cache ticks for later consumption, for example, only to have the still-living bugs scuttle away when they're not watching.

Most people dislike magpies because they can kill baby songbirds, says Jim Mitchell, a trapper based in Westlock with the Alberta Trapper's Association. "They'll raid nests like crazy," he says, and can harass pets for their food.

But that's partially the fault of the owner for leaving the food out, he notes. "They (the birds) have young to feed, too."

While you can live-trap magpies, Mitchell says doing so doesn't often help, as you'll either have to kill the bird or dump it in another bird's territory.

Magpies are mainly interested in food, he notes, so you can keep them away by keeping your pet food indoors and your lids on your trash cans.

Magpies can be noisy, Freysteinson says, but so can kids. "They're just being themselves." She's not a fan of trapping or shooting them, and was upset to see traps deployed in her neighbourhood recently.

Freysteinson describes the magpies in her yard as very polite, and says they typically take turns to get their peanuts. "They'll shop around for their peanuts," she notes, often shaking the shells to find the best ones, and will sometimes try to haul away three at once. "They'll barely clear the house."

Magpies might be irritating, Mitchell says, but they're also here to stay. "They are a fact of urban wildlife. You're going to have magpies for quite a while."