What? You still blogging about the magpies? The nest is empty! Yes, just before Memorial Day, an adult magpie was killed in front of our living room window. I was hoping it wasn’t one of our mating pair, but of course it was, as soon after we discovered two dead babies on the ground near where the adult had been killed. Then the nest and even our yard turned quiet. Where had the widowed mate gone?
It was a bit of a challenge letting go of that magpie family we had been watching for 8 weeks from every front window of our house, building the nest, the male feeding the female as she nested, and finally both of them taking care of the babies. I had been expecting the babies to fledge about the time one of the adults was killed.
I was surprised at how sad I was. How could I have become so attached to that pair of nesting magpies? I did a lot of research on magpies, (hence five blogs!) and discovered how they are one of the smartest animals on the planet, how they mate for life. Here’s an informative link: https://www.nature-anywhere.com/blogs/bird-feeding-academy/bird-card-the-black-billed-magpie
In captivity a Black-billed magpie can live up to 20 years but the average life-span in the wild is 2-4 years. They don’t even start breeding until they are a couple years old. Only about 14% of magpies ever succeed in breeding. They may successfully raise only 7-11 chicks to adulthood in a lifetime.
One of the most fascinating facts about magpies is that they grieve for their dead and gather for funerals. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1221754/Magpies-grieve-dead-turn-funerals.html
When a magpie discovers the body of a dead magpie he will call out as loud as he can to attract other magpies to the area. Together they will squawk loudly for up to 15 minutes, leave grass ‘wreaths’ and then silently leave the scene. Some funerals have had up to 40 mourners.
Here’s a youtube link to a video of a funeral – (you might want to turn down your sound!)
Now you need to turn up your sound (!!) to fully experience the event that happened early Saturday morning, June 3. At 7am David and I simultaneously bolted upright from deep slumber. (Hey, we’re retired.) What’s going on? It took me a bit to realize what we were hearing through our open upstairs bedroom windows. What in the world? I scrambled to find my i-Phone to capture a video from our bedroom of the loud screaming magpie fracas around the nest in our front may tree.
As it turned out, I needn’t have rushed to find my phone to take a video. Play my 47-second video over and over again about 17 times and you will have experienced what could only have been the funeral for the deceased magpies. After about 15 minutes the magpies all flew off and the tree fell silent. The funeral helped me grieve and find closure as well.
Lastly, here’s a sweet parting song on Youtube called “Magpie” by Ian Tyson. A few lyrics:
“Always wakin’ up my wife and I,
You ol’ coyote in the sky.
The west ain’t never gonna die,
Just as long as you can fly…”
.
The sun has set on the magpies.
And, I guess I could focus now on putting out the hummingbird feeders.
The Decompression of a Boomer 
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