Magpies (not the football supporters)

[Trout Tempter]

Does anyone out there have any views on Magpies. I have just spent all day trying to stop a pair of magpies eating all the young in the three nests in my garden hedge (1 wren, 1 greenfinch and a blackbird). is there anything I can do? I know the magpies will return first thing in the morning to polish them all off.

[Guest Ferret1959]

You can shoot them they are not protected, same as any corvids.

I will come and do it for you if you want to pay for petrol.

[Trout Tempter]

Is this feasable in a back garden in a hosing estate ?

[Trout Tempter]

I say hosing estate as it's traditional to mow the lawn and "hose" the car on Sundays

[Guest kingfisher]

Choose the right time (early in the morning).

And use an air rifle but make sure it's got enough power to clean kill.

[Davy Holt]

gotta agree.. the only good magpie is the one with a hole in it's head and the air rifle is the way to do it. If you cant shoot them there is a UK baised company on the web selling humane traps specificly for magpies now that more and more people are realising just what damage they actualy do.

 

btw if anyone is interested I've got a Theoben Rapid 7 that's looking for a new home

[OP-JB]

Make a Larson Trap. Use a decoy bird in one compartment to catch another bird in a separate compartment with a spring loaded roof held open by a break-a-way perch. How do you get a decoy bird? Catch it by using a small nest with bantey eggs in the catcher. Tip 1...Clip one of the wings of the decoy just in case the neighbours think it's cruel and let it go. Tip 2...Don't let them go a few miles away. Tip 3... Feed your decoy on dry complete dog food flakes. You will go on trapping for the next month and have twenty or so. I have six traps on the go a the moment.

 

Op -JB

[Guest kingfisher]

Davy Holt you have mail

[RED HILLBILLY]

I thought air rifles were made illegal in the UK? My ex-nextdoor neighbour's kid was killed by one a few years ago.

 

Hillbilly.

[Jim Roper]

Trout Tempter

The easiest and most efficient way to get rid of magpies (and Crows) is the use of Larsen traps. The birds will protect their terratory against intruders. You put the trap containing a magpie from somewhere else in the area you wish to clear of magpies or crows and, if left quiet, you will have the resident pair within a couple of hours, sometimes 20 minutes.

These traps are available from advertisers in magezines like shooting times, but you should be able to borrow one for a weekend from a local gamekeeper. Contact BASC http://www.basc.org.uk or the game conservancy (http://www.game-conservancy.org.uk) who used to supply plans for making them. They measure 32" X 32" X 20".

After the first year of cotrolling magpies and crows, an area should hold 80% more songbirds. This might mean an increase in other sorts of natural predators such as sparrow hawks and after a few years the numbers of songbirds have been seen in tests to maintain a 30% increase over the pre-control period.

If you, or your neighbours, do not like the idea of a caged wild bird as a decoy, I have found that newly-born rabbits (Dead Of Course) are very effective bait.

Eggs full of super glue might work!!!!!!

 

Jim Roper