by Jesse Hanson
People in England and Australia have been writing poems about magpies, and they were the subject of superstition, for hundreds of years. When English settlers came to Alberta, some would write about how they looked and behaved with class, as if they were wearing tuxedos. There is a children’s magazine and a British Premier League Football team (Newcastle United, with its black and white home uniforms) named after them. So, who are these birds?
More than a hundred years ago, Judith Wright wrote: “Along the road the magpies walk with hands in pockets, left and right. They tilt their heads, and stroll and talk in their well-fitted black and white. They look like certain gentlemen who seem most nonchalant and wise until their meal is served – and then what clashing beaks, what greedy eyes!”
When they first came to North America, they fed on ticks and corpses of buffalo. They have since learned that it is an easier life near farmsteads and in cities, where they stay year-round.
In Calgary, we have only Black Billed Magpies. They are known for their loud squawking and how they raid the nests and steal the eggs of other birds. Like crows, their families band together for defence from predators. You can sometimes see them flying above and pecking at a hawk that has threatened or stolen their young, which are vulnerable, when learning to fly.
