I Just Gotta Tell Some One

     I was standing on my side walk today when an old beater of a car swung across the road to me. The old guy looked pretty rough and his car was packed with stuff and he had a huge dog in the front seat. I thought he was maybe going to ask for directions. But no. He asked me if I knew about all the magpies around here. My Middle school teacher brain clicked in and I said, "No!"

    Now our area has a very heavy population of magpies. They are all over the place. They are a nuisance and steal lots of little birds from nests.

    The "no" answer didn't stop him for a second. He just had to tell somebody his story. He had just seen two magpies chasing a jack rabbit. One magpie was chasing from behind and one was at the front. He was so amazed at what he had just seen that he had to stop and tell the first person what he had seen. He picked a good person to tell his story to as I am interested in those things and have posted many times on jack rabbits as our area has many jack rabbits as well as magpies. 

A feisty little guy in my neighbor's back yard

A trick rabbit drinking from the sprinkler also from my neighbor's yard

You have to look very hard but you will see a very young rabbit.

I was two steps away from this one when I took his picture.

    Magpies are well known to be teasers. They will tease dogs . When the dog leaves it's food dish in goes a magpie as magpies like dog food.

   Magpies will tease red squirrels. One magpie will be above the squirrel in the tree and the other one will be below the squirrel. The poor squirrel will try to climb the tree and finds Mr magpie. The squirrel goes down the tree and there's a magpie below. The chase gets pretty exciting until the squirrel jumps from the tree and escapes. 

   So watching the critters sometimes gives us unexpected stories.

ROBBERS AND THIEVES

     The other day I was looking out my window to the backyard when a magpie landed and pulled up a big fat dew worm . Now I thought what a good fellow . I don't like dew worms and would like to get rid of them . The magpie took two bites out of the dew worm and then a crow landed and scared the magpie away . The crow took a few bites of the dew worm and left . Now, crows and magpies are quite often called thieves and robbers and I had just witnessed a crime .


     Later on I was walking by the school yard and heard a tremendous squawk and noticed a seagull in distress . The disruption was caused by a crow hanging on to a feather in the sea gull's wing. The seagull went round and round trying to get loose and the crow hung on tightly . The crow finally let go and the seagull left . I suppose the seagull had found a tasty morsel and the crow noticed and moved in .

     Another robbery!