Our Magpie Condo Expansion
Last year we had a
smaller magpie nest in one tree and a larger one in another. This
year, the small nest seems to be gone and the big nest seems larger
(Helena calls that one "the condo"). The logical inference
is that the magpies disassembled the small nest to expand the large
one (perhaps to better defend against squirrel incursions).
Do magpies nest in the same place every year?
Both Black-billed and Eurasian
magpies often reuse nests, or nest in the same territory. Some
30% to 40% of magpie nests in the USA are reused and upgraded.
In Europe, Eurasian magpies either
return to the same territory to nest or reuse last year’s nest.
Most magpies are sedentary and remain in their breeding territories
throughout much of the year.
https://birdfact.com/articles/magpie-nesting
People worry that magpies eat the songbird eggs, but according to
the link, this is not necessarily true. They might actually help the
songbird populations. In my area, there seems to be plenty of small
birds, though I don’t hear as many chickadees as I used to. But,
there has been a lot of infill housing, and thus a reduction in large
trees, which probably hurts the populations of some birds.
Magpies are opportunistic omnivores
and occasionally feed upon songbird eggs and nestlings. This is not
as common as many people seem to think, and either way, it’s the
natural behaviour of an opportunistic omnivore. Magpies and other
corvids generally don’t affect populations of songbirds.
Paradoxically, some studies even find a correlation between increased
corvid numbers and increased songbird numbers. Perhaps the corvids
scare away predators that are more troublesome to the songbirds than
themselves.
And here's a hiking book. I can't recall if there are any magpies in it, but there are some amusing bird encounters.
Hiking the Wild North Shore of Lake Superior
The north shore of Lake Superior is wild and beautiful. It is also
quite sparsely populated, so a hiking trip (or other adventure) will
truly give you chance to get away from it all, and back to nature in
its full glory.
Lake Superior is big – it is the largest of the North American
Great Lakes, and one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world.
One could spend years exploring the area, and still have barely
touched the possibilities.
This account focuses on a multi-day backpacking trip in Pukaskwa
National Park, some light canoeing in White Lake Provincial Park, and
some day-hiking in the Thunder Bay area.
What follows is a journal of some of the highlights of a trip to
Northern Ontario in the summer of 1998. That gives the trip a bit of
a historical flavor, but things don’t change very quickly in the
wild country of the true north, so it will also give the reader a
good idea of what to expect during their own exploration of the north
shore.
You can purchase it for 99 cents U.S.,
equivalent price in other currencies. Alternatively, keep your
eyes open for a free promotions, which occur periodically. Or, get
it with Kindle Unlimited.
U.S.: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F9TV4C8
U.K.:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07F9TV4C8
Germany:
https://www.amazon.de/dp/B07F9TV4C8
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Australia:
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India:
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