240718 magpies, chicks and adults, mid July update

Mostly Magpies, but also Gulls, Crows, Oystercatchers and Swans.
A lot of activities in and around our garden.
The Magpie chicks develop very nicely. They are still three. Still spending a lot of time in our garden and at the steel tree.
Magpie chicks are maybe the most curious and playful of all bird chicks.
They play a lot, both with each other and with anything they find interesting.
The parents have just started to train them to become independent for real.
They 'chase' them mildy away from the steel tree now and then.
The chicks are still followed closely by the adults though.
The adults have started to molt. Their tails are now a lot shorter than the chicks' tails.
They will soon look like 'disasters'.
A Gull couple has fallen in love with the steel tree, wanting to claim it as a proper Gull nest foundation.
We have believed it's the Exons, and not. It has been hard to decide from the angle of the cam and some details don't match properly.
We are surprised they have chosen the steel tree. It's not suited for gulls, at all.
And we actually don't want gull chicks there, they will fall into our garden after hatching.
Small Gull chicks inside the garden are not good, neither for our dogs nor for the chicks.
The Magpies really hate the thought of Gulls on top of their potential nest and do everything they can to try to persuade them to leave.
We have put an extra branch on the top to try to convince the Gulls not to nest there.
We have also cleared out the Sparrows' nest and the mud from this spring.

[@lifeithebalcoy]

Nice video.

[@picapicalife]

Thank you. It's very 'easy' to make videos with these nice birds.

[@user-uy7qw2nx5o]

Lovely to see more Mag close ups.
And great to see how well the OCs and Swans are doing.
Those gulls sure are determined, how strange at this point in the season. (At this rate the season may never end!)
The Mags are adamant it isn't going to happen aren't they, they will defend their special place come what may! Quite a sustained attack but I wasn't surprised to see the gull getting its own back in the garden!
I can understand the desire to be more elevated though, given the dangers down low, (especially if they have maybe already failed with a first brood attempt) but there seem to be more appropriate, flatter, sites around.
Watching the gull at the end in the garden, I felt really sorry for them. Whoever it is , they really do seem a bit 'desperate '. It could well be a pair you know as they do seem totally set on finding a place near to you.
It's Corvid Chaos here ,it's their time now and the Starlings, who have been monopolising everything for some time, are having to take a back seat, as are the rest of the birds.
'Our' 5 maggies are on and off our windowsill and around about each day, along with Jackdaw youngsters and Rook kids.
No Crows yet as they don't come that often since we removed the large feeding table, we miss seeing them so it's nice to see 'yours'. The Cemetery Crows we visit each week though have 2 youngsters.
They also spend a lot of time playing a favourite Corvid past time of rolling stones down from the roof, our car is not always happy and it often gives us quite a scare!
Yesterday when our TV connection went weird we found the culprit to be one of the mag kids happily jumping up and down on the satellite dish outside.
The parents drop them off in 'our Creche' each year and they will stay in this area until next breeding season when they'll be chased off. The adults also come here to feed but it's more of a neutral territory and not usually where they nest.
The Mags are a bit of a mystery again this year in that there are 5 youngsters again, but they appeared in two lots just like last year, with the first 2 looking more developed and much 'tidier' and blacker in appearance ( not the adults) then the other 3 turned up looking much more ' bedraggled ' and a rustier colour . We’re not sure if they are all from the same brood or from 2 different Mag families.
'Ours' are more advanced in the 'disaster phase' than 'yours' particularly the parents!
We are very worried about one of the youngsters as yesterday he/she turned up with what looks like it could be chewing gum stuck in its beak at the front, forcing the beak open and causing some food eaten to get stuck on it, it’s a serious concern and we don't think there's anything we could do to help, it is thankfully managing to get some food past and swallowed but it's keeping to itself a lot, we haven't seen it yet today.
We have experienced quite a few birds over the years with various actual beak deformities, some have survived, some unfortunately not, but never this kind of problem.
There is an older Jackdaw here that has the worst beak deformity we've seen, it's beak being maybe 1 1/2 inches too long, curled and completely crossed over (so never closed). It is permanently covered in dried mud on one side as he can't clean it. It's a wonder he has survived this long but he has and has started to look a bit better in himself since we've been trying to get food to him.
Years ago, long before we started feeding the birds, there was a Jackdaw in the neighbourhood that could be spotted from way in the distance due to its ridiculously long beak poor thing. We worry there are maybe some kind of ' pollutants ' , possibly from industries or farming, around affectihg the birds as over the years we've witnessed far too many weird abnormalities like these, and an awful lot of leucism, wouldn't be surprising as there are often contamination problems with rivers, lakes and sea here!!

[@picapicalife]

Yes, they are still around all the time, but it seems like the parents have started to push them out in adulthood.
We don't know how much more they will molt (the adults are still pretty young, we have not seen molting on such young Magpies before?), probably a lot more. Yes, you are a little ahead of us in time.
Your 5 maggies seem to be chicks from two different families.
Chicks usually all hatch within very few days (controlled by the parents). If they look different, they are most probably not from the same nest. In Norway 3.2 chicks statistically survive to fledge (out of 6-7 eggs), so both two and three chicks are a pretty normal lot.
Last time we answered you, we were pretty certain it was the Exons.
Then we became uncertain again only to think it's the Exons afterall.
There are only two couples staying on the roof; Lady and Wing and the Exons. No other couples use the roof as their domain.
It's not likely the Exons would have allowed other couples to try to claim the Magpies' nest neither.
But certainly Exon doesn't look like himself when on top of the steel tree...
Wing and Exon have pretty frequent disputes on the roof. Both want to push their boarders further out. It seems like Wing is the strongest at the time.
The Exons seem to really want to have a nest near the roof, maybe not for this year, but probably trying to claim it for later. We don't think they have any chicks this year.
We hope they can find a suitable place for themselves, somewhere as close as they want, only not actually inside the garden.
We hope the Magpies' interest in the nest is resulting in a proper nesting next year. They are now getting to know us better and are a lot lesser shy. It would have been fantastic to see a 'full circle' nesting up close.
Sadly there are no Jackdaws in this area.
Beak deformities are not very common here.
Gher returned with two of her eldest chicks today. Gher is not a 'mad lady' any more, behaving pretty nice. The youngsters seem very fine. They seem like they could have left today, if they wanted. They all got some food directly from our food box. The 3rd chick has not been seen lately. We try not to think too much about it.
Lady and Wing are like a nice dream.
The chicks are both developing fantastically. We don't think there is any reasons for concerns about their future any more, if everything moves like it does at the time.
Thank you for the update from your place.

[@user-uy7qw2nx5o]

Not sure at what age the Mags have a full moult but know the youngsters only have a partial one.
Hard to not think the worst where Kid3 is concerned but hopefully not.
We saw the young maggy yesterday and the suspected chewing gum had disappeared so we don't think it was that after all, we're not sure what's going on but hope it's not sick, it doesn't look or act so apart from its beak being so 'congested' the other day.
Nice to hear Gher is so much more relaxed now,she's had a hard time of it.
It does seem likely it could be the Exons then as what you say makes sense, they wouldn't be happy at all with another pair being so close.