[WhiteWarrior]

Crows will show up in my garden but rarely, and a visit from a raven even more rarely. But every day I am visited by four magpies, they have nests in a large tree in my neighbor's garden. Magpies are the little brothers of crows and ravens as they are in the same family - Corvidae - and are fiendishly clever. They keep guard all the time and whenever I go out into the garden I hear their watchout calling. My cat (who died last autumn I am sorry to say) was fed outside for much of the year and the magpies would be congregating in the nearby bushes and fences before he'd had three bites. As soon as he felt fed and walked a couple of feet away the first of them would swoop in for a mouthful, followed quickly by the rest if the recon got away with it. Some times one of them would circle behind him and try to peck his butt, and if he did give chase the other three would head for the food in a hurry. I call them tentatively Sarge, Leut, Captain and Major according to their white stripes but it is hard to say who is who.