Further to our recent maunderings about Aussie wildlife – and thanks to the commentator who correctly reminded me that Salties are definitely apex predators – it’s time to grasp the nettle that is the Australian magpie.  

You know those videos you see on the internet where dogs and cats do what they do when no-one’s home? It’s très amusant to see people’s furbabies captured on nannycam lolling in the master’s favourite chair or tracking their unclean way all over the kitchen surfaces – a kind of answer to that conundrum about the tree that falls in the woods when there’s no-one around to hear it. Well, this was a bit like that, except with birds – and still photos rather than video.

Since moving into Corner Cottage, we’ve been aware of a magpie who sits in the big fir tree and makes odd noises from time to time, or sometimes makes a foray into the garden to pick up whatever it can, food-wise. To the extent we’ve thought about this interloper at all, we’ve been ambivalent: it’s not a pretty songbird but by the same token, if there were any of those, they’ve been in the process of migrating north for the winter. And the magpie does have a kind of a musical call.

Through word of mouth, I’ve been made aware of territorial magpies’ tendency to swoop on unsuspecting cyclists during the spring breeding season, leading to the rather unique deployment of zip-ties on helmets to discourage their dive-bombing attacks. Apparently it works, despite provoking great amusement in the new immigrant on seeing it for the first time. 

Apart from this, most of the vague knowledge I’d gleaned about magpies was about the European kind, such as the myth that they steal shiny – and often valuable – items and carry them off to their nests. It would then follow that people would go to considerable lengths to find these nests – but there’s no credible record of people shinnying up trees and coming down with a nestful of diamond rings, gold sovereigns, Picasso etchings and the like. It’s a pity – that sounds a lot like the magic money tree Theresa May once assured the UK she did not have.

Apparently this myth is based on just how intelligent and curious they are. They’re certainly observant. And even though the Aussie kind aren’t related to the European magpie (which are corvids – which explains why your spell-checker wants to change COVID to ‘corvid’ all the time), they certainly share this trait. Whenever I vent my anti-weed mania on a section of the garden, the magpie will give it a good going-over once I’ve finished, in search of worms and bugs I may have turned up. It’s petty clear it’s been watching.

Then, today I was working away in my shed – I mean ‘studio’ – while the rest of the family went off on a carefree jaunt to Canberra, and I experienced an example of this. Having written myself into a frenzy and created too many rabbit-holes to follow up in the time available, I got up to stretch my legs. And out of the studio window I saw this:

I’ve subsequently learnt that the collective noun for Magpies is a ‘tiding’, which is nice. I’m pretty sure that what was happening all over our front steps was a tiding. These guys were pretty systematically checking the place out, casting those critical unblinking eyes over the woodpile, the watering can, various shoes and gardening implements. They probably had a bit to say about that finial lying there, still not restored to its rightful place on the roof gable (I’m getting to it OK?)

As soon as they noticed me peering at them through the window, the magpies went into a kind of organised retreat. They didn’t blast off in a flutter of panicky wingbeats like, say, pigeons, but employed a tactically advanced withdrawal, with one or two moving at any time while the others took turns at fixing the evil eye on me. Then one or two would sit observing me from a higher vantage point while another couple made for cover.

This evidence of organisational power among dark, sinister-looking birds had a slightly chilling Hitchcockian air to it – not to mention the fact that our usual solitary observer had clearly called for back-up.

Later Daniela revealed she’d left some toast crumbs on the steps for the local wildlife (do possums eat crumbs?). Even so, it’s pretty clear that the magpies are organised – or organising. So for now we’ll keep an eye on each other – and I’ll be hoping that spring brings a bit more variety when it comes to birds of the garden variety.