Magpies

When I first started thinking about writing this blog on Magpies I realised that I had no idea where the name came from. My first thought was that it couldn’t be a Pie made of Mags (I once had a girlfriend of that name). But, blow me, it was. Sort of.

I looked up various etymology sites and they all agree that Mag is a nickname for Margaret and was slang English for qualities associated generally with women, especially in this case ‘idle chattering’ as in Magge tales ‘tall tales, nonsense’ in the early 15th century.

The second part, pie, was the original name of the bird in English—the earliest record there is of them comes from an Anglo-Saxon document that lists pyge as the Old English translation of pica, the Latin name for the magpie. It’s from this Latin name that the English pie eventually evolved.

In the UK and Europe they have built up a sinister reputation over the centuries. Shakespeare has them in Macbeth as ‘maggot-pies’ and there is this from 1507 ‘Whan pyes chatter vpon a house it is a sygne of ryghte euyll tydynges’.

In other parts of the world, however, they are seen as bringing good luck. There are some lovely paintings of them related to the Chinese version of Valentine’s Day.

Korea has it as their National Bird and when their children lose a tooth they throw it on the roof while singing a song for the bird. The Magpie will hear the song and bring them a new tooth. I rather like that.

From this we can see that the Magpie is a common bird around the world but I shall stick to the UK for now where the Magpie has a reputation for stealing glittery objects to line their nest, not for practical reasons but just for the look. But a study published last year in the journal Animal Cognition seems to discredit this behaviour. Researchers found no evidence magpies were attracted to shiny objects offered to them, indeed the birds shunned the gifts. Instead they had ‘neophobia’ the researchers claimed; the birds were afraid of the unfamiliar, wary of the baubles.

I found it fascinating that the magpie is one of the most intelligent birds—and one of the most intelligent animals to exist. Their brain-to-body-mass ratio is outmatched only by that of humans and equals that of aquatic mammals and great apes.

Magpies have shown the ability to make and use tools, imitate human speech, grieve, play games, and work in teams. When one of their own kind dies, a grouping will form around the body for a ‘funeral’ of squawks and cries. To portion food to their young, magpies will use self-made utensils to cut meals into proper sizes.

Magpies are also capable of passing a cognitive experiment called the ‘mirror test’ which proves an organism’s ability to recognize itself in a reflection. To perform this test, a coloured dot is placed on animals, or humans, in a place that they will be able to see only by looking into a mirror. Subjects pass if they can look at their reflection and recognize that the mark is on themselves and not another, often by attempting to reach and remove it. Passing the mirror test is a feat of intelligence that only four other animal species can accomplish.

For some reason there are many collective nouns for a group of magpies. One site I found had eleven but perhaps the most common are conventicle, gulp, mischief, tidings or tribe. I’m going for a Gulp as it is just so bizarre.

Also bizarre is the old rhyme about Magpies. I only knew the first few lines but came across the following, apparently a Lancashire version:

One for sorrow
Two for joy
Three for a girl
Four for a boy
Five for silver
Six for gold
Seven for a secret
Never to be told
Eight for a wish
Nine for a kiss
Ten a surprise you should be careful not to miss
Eleven for health
Twelve for wealth
Thirteen beware it’s the devil himself.


Terry Quinn

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Magpies - One for Sorrow, Two for Joy

One for sorrow, two for joy. There they are again, on the fence, eyeing up the bird-feeders, the cheeky pair. They were going for it the other day, standing on the top of the frame from where they were able to peck at the fat-balls then stretching to the seed holders to steal from them. Stealing it is, because those feeders are for sparrows. By the time I’ve stood up from my chair, they’ve flown home to next door’s tree.

Over the weekend I was tidying the back garden and making space to plant some winter flowering pansies. For once it was quiet. Usually there’s someone nearby with a lawn-mower or strimmer, or noisy DIY going on and there’s always sirens. We are close to the hospital, the M55, the main police headquarters and a fire station. The sirens are really annoying but not as irritating as the sound of the magpies. The afternoon was pleasantly warm and the air was still. I wanted to do as much as I could before my knees and upper legs surrendered. Soon the magpies kicked off with loud, rattly chak chak chakking. It’s a horrible noise and I think they do it on purpose when they see me come outside. I did what I needed to do as quickly as I could. Next door’s tree is a well-established sycamore and I’m sure it is a housing estate for a massive conventicle of magpies or at least the overspill from the trees around nearby Lawson’s Field.

Magpies have an attractive plumage of black and white with a wide stripe of navy blue which is beautifully vibrant in sunlight. They are predators of bird’s eggs and nestlings which they will kill to feed their young. Nice looking but nasty creatures which also carry superstition. I don’t like to see just one on its own and have to mutter “Good day, Mr Magpie” and hope for another to show up. Apparently, in China they are thought to bring good luck.

In my early teens I used to enjoy ‘Magpie’, the TV show. I’ve read that it was a rival to Blue Peter. I don’t remember it being anything like Blue Peter. I found it entertaining and informative aimed at slightly older kids, which is probably what appealed to me. And it had the rhyme we all know for a signature tune. Join in.

One for sorrow
Two for joy,
Three for a girl
Four for a boy.
Five for silver
Six for gold
Seven for a secret
Never to be told.
Eight for a wish,
Nine for a kiss,
Ten for a bird
You must not miss.
Magpie.

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Superstition and embarrassing throwbacks.

Superstition; it’s a little bit like an appendix. When we used to roam the land in prehistoric times, and the weight of what we didn’t know about the world around us threatened to overwhelm us, we created explanations; rituals and routines to stave off this fear. But nowadays, it’s no longer needed. It’s a little like that fear people have for spiders. They aren’t going to hurt us but our brain is wired for that shape of creature to be a threat, because there was a time when it was. That little element of the brain and psyche which makes people throw salt over their shoulder and create a mess is anachronistic now; we do understand the world better.

Communication, technology and science have allowed the doubt to fade, but that little pillock superstition continues to make fools of us all. Yes I avoid ladders. I can’t help myself. Yes I hate the number 13. But it’s my brain playing games with me, I know it is. Religions are both a result of this and exploitative of it. Superstitions, like any social construct, have changed over hundreds of years. People used to think in the 19th century that if they dropped a cloth it meant someone would visit, or if they saw a new moon over their left shoulder that bad luck would befall them. Logically we know this is nonsense, but something draws us into our own bizarre little rituals.

There are some folk with a heightened presence of this little pillock, and it causes them to go up and down the stairs again if they missed counting a step (yes I’ve done this). It causes them to wash their hands too frequently because of a fear of germs. It causes them to touch their furniture in a certain order before leaving the house and if they miss it, it means the world is going to end. We think these people have an illness, OCD. But it’s seemingly ok to touch a piece of wood whenever we believe we have been presumptuous or expecting a lot. So, superstition. I know it’s there, and I keep doing odd stuff in its name. But I know that it is just a bit of my brain which was useful once, when the world was too big for a human to comprehend properly, and is a relic. Not to be taken too seriously. That’s easier said than done though. When’s the next Friday the 13th?

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