Magpies are another great favourite of mine, they are so intelligent, you really don't have to watch them very long to realise this.

I've been fascinated with them, and the whole Crow family in fact, since I was very young, my grandmother on my mothers side used to tell me story's of the antics of birds she had kept as pets as a child, I have to say I don't know how she came to be keeping a wild species as a pet, perhaps she had adopted injured birds, certainly they had a reputation as pests in those days.

Of course there was also THAT rhyme we all knew as children.

One for sorrow,

Two for joy,

Three for a girl, 

And four for a boy,

Five for silver,

Six for gold,

Seven for a secret never to be told.

I'm pretty sure it was that rhyme that was to blame for the locals in Oxfordshire saying "Hello Sir, hows the missus" whenever confronted by a solitary Magpie. I was often told it was because one Magpie was bad luck, which could be avoided by the assumption that the birds mate was not too far away.

Magpies are of course NOT bad luck, and recent study has revealed that their reputation as thieves of shiny objects is equally unfounded in truth.

Just a highly intelligent and likeable bird, just like the other members of the Crow family.