As i daily put food out for ground feeding birds my population of magpies has increased somewhat. Counted 17 today. Wonder how many breeding pairs to produce this amount.
The BTO page on Magpies says they have an average clutch size of 5-6 eggs with a survival rate of 0.4 in the first year, so if that population of 17 includes the adult pairs and their young, I suppose it would be around 4 breeding pairs and 9 first-year young birds?However, the mention of larger flocks of magpies has come up previously at this time of year, and it was suggested they might all be juveniles exchanging ideas between each other, in which case around 7 breeding pairs would be needed to have 17 juveniles survive a year (unless my maths is way out!)
Quite a sight only downside i suppose is less food to go around.
I appreciate you, Nice work.
I've found a dead magpie this morning in my plant pot as if it nose dived itself into it . It's definitely not been buried I just can't work out why . Has anyone else come across this behaviour