To say that Magpies are garrulous would be as trite as to say hens cackle, and the adjective could not be better defined than “talking like a Magpie.” The Magpie is the symbol of loquacity. The very type in which this is printed is small pica; that is small Magpie. Much of this bird’s conversation is undoubtedly unfit for print, but it has always the merit of vivacity. A party of Magpies will keep up a running commentary on current events, now facetious, now vehement, as they move about; while a comparative cessation of the racket means, as likely as not, that some favorite raconteur is holding forth, and that there will be an explosion of riotous laughter when his tale is done. The pie, like Nero, aspires to song; but no sycophant will be found to praise him, for he intersperses his more tuneful musings with chacks and barks and harsh interjections which betray a disordered taste. In modulation and quality, however, the notes sometimes verge upon the human; and it is well known that Magpies can be instructed until they acquire a handsome repertoire of speech.
In order that their double quartet of youngsters may be lined up for the egg harvest, the Magpies take an early start at home building. April is the nesting month, but I have two records for March 30th,—one of five eggs at Chelan, and one of eight in Yakima County. In the latter instance the first egg must have been deposited not later than March 18th. And because the season affords him no protection, the Magpie resorts to two expedients in nest building in lieu of concealment: he first seeks retirement, the depths of some lonesome swamp, an unfrequented draw, or wooded spring, in the foothills, and then he erects a castle which would do credit to a feudal baron. The nest is a ball of interlacing sticks set about a hollow half-sphere of dried mud. The amount of labor expended upon one of these structures is prodigious. The greasewood nest shown in the accompanying cut is three feet deep and two feet thru, and the component sticks are so firmly interwoven that no ordinary agency, short of the human hand, can effect an entrance. The bird enters thru an obscure passage in one side, and, if surprised upon the nest, has always a way of escape planned thru the opposite wall. The mud cup is carefully shaped with walls an inch or two in thickness, a total breadth of eight or ten inches, and a like depth. In the best construction this cavity is filled to a depth of three or four inches with a loose mat of fine twigs of a uniform size. Upon this in turn is placed a coiled mattress of fine, clean rootlets, the whole affording a very sanitary arrangement.
Another fortress, of single construction, was four feet deep and three and a half feet thru; and that, too, after making liberal allowance for chance projections. The component sticks measure up to three feet in length and three-quarters of an inch in thickness. Nests are repaired and re-occupied year after year; or if they fall into hopeless decay, new structures are erected upon the ruins of the old. The tenement photographed on Homely Island is a double nest (it looks triple, but the upper third is merely the dome for the central portion, or nest proper), and measures seven feet from top to bottom. It contained seven eggs on April 24th, 1905, but altho the oölogist is very fond of little Magpies’ eggs, he left these as a tribute to Mr. and Mrs. Cheops.
Taken in Benton County. Photo by the Author.
MAGPIE’S NEST ON HOMELY ISLAND.
This historic pile is in marked contrast to one sighted in a willow on the banks of Crab Creek near Odessa. My attention was attracted to the spot by a scuffle, which took place between a Magpie and a pair of Kingbirds; and when I started to examine the nest, I was in honest doubt whether it might not belong to the Kingbirds. The foundation was of mud, but this came near constituting the outside of the nest instead of the inside. The action of the wind upon the willows had compressed the mud bowl to a boat-shaped receptacle wherein lay five brown beauties, unmistakable Magpies’ eggs. There was a copious lining of rootlets, and a light half-cover of thorn twigs; but the whole structure was not over a foot in diameter and scarcely that in depth.
Taken near Spokane. Photo by Fred S. Merrill.
YOUNG MAGPIE.
Magpies, like Blue Jays, are discreetly quiet in nesting time, and especially so if they have attempted to nest in the vicinity of a farmhouse. When driven to the hills by persecution they accept any shelter, and will nest in greasewood, sage-brush, or even on the ground. Arbors of clematis (clematis ligusticifolia) offer occasional concealment, but thornapples (Cratægus columbianum, etc.) afford the safest retreat. A Magpie snugly ensconced in a thornapple fortress may well bid defiance to any retributive agency short of man. Among several scores of nests I never saw one in a pine tree in the Yakima country, yet these are freely utilized in Chelan, Okanogan, and Spokane Counties. Indeed, in these latter localities there is a suspicion of dawning preference for the tree-tops and difficult climbs. On the Columbia River I once found a family of Magpies occupying the basement of a huge Osprey’s nest, and had reason to believe that the thrifty pies made efficient, if unwelcome, janitors.
Young Magpies are unsightly when hatched,—“worse than naked,” and repulsive to a degree equaled only by young Cormorants. Hideous as they unquestionably are, the devoted parents declare them angels, and are ready to back their opinions with most raucous vociferations. With the possible exception of Herons, who are plebes anyhow, Magpies are the most abusive and profane of birds. When a nest of young birds is threatened, they not only express such reasonable anxiety as any parent might feel, but they denounce, upbraid, anathematize, and vilify the intruder, and decry his lineage from Adam down. They show the ingenuity of Orientals in inventing opprobrious epithets, and when these run dry, they fall to tearing at the leaves, the twigs, the branches, or even light on the ground and rip up the soil with their beaks, in the mad extremity of their rage.