Everyone seems to have posted about one of their favourite birds, but the bird of the day I find a pest is the magpie!

They are crafty things and always seem to upset other birds. We have several blackbird and sparrow nests in our garden in the springtime but the magpies always try and steal the eggs.

Magpies have also been the cause of killing one of the rabbits we used to keep as they used to attack it when it was out and the vet thinks the magpie passed on a disease called mixamatosis which is fatal in rabbits.

Is there anyone who agrees or disagrees with magpies being pests?

Sunshine , I have lost rabbits to myxomotosis also. but do you know it is spread by a flea? I am more or less sure that it was a grey squirrel in my case as I saw it visiting the rabbits. I had three runs at the time & the squirrel never went in the middle run & that was the only rabbit that didn't get it. Do maggies have fleas?
I know they are never popular as they are a scavenger of the bird world buit as I said in 'bird stories' thread we did help one last year. I always think they are a pest but they are only doing what comes naturally & they didn't possibly ask to come back as a magpie. That's a bit sentimental really but I object when there are too many of them sentiment goes out the window then.

Its quite possible that the a magpie could have fleas I would think, so it could have been one that caused the death of sunshines rabbit, but a grey squirrel could also be a possbility. Did you see any grey squirrels visiting sunshine? Perhaps we should make a new topic on this

Our garden didn't have that many trees where we kept the rabbits plus I've never seen a grey squirrel in my garden so I doubt it was them. The vet told me that birds like magpies pick them up from places like farms and then transfer them to other animals, which in a rabbits case can be fatal.
We were also not allowed to bury the rabbit incase other animals dug it up and spread the disease further

That's very interesting and something I wouldn't have thought of doing unless I had been reminded.

(Also, I have split this topic from Bird of the day so that the topics don't get mixed up. Hope that's ok!)

That's brilliant Xeract.
When my rabbits got myxo I wasn't told not to bury them.
Someone was telling me that they saw a magpie stomp on a baby sparrow on the ground then carry it off for food. I knew they were quite brutalk but I have never heard of that.