For two or three weeks now I've been watching a couple of magpies building a nest in a large tree near the path that runs between Northernhay Park and Central Station (in Exeter). Keep trying to see if they have chicks yet but both are still off the nest at the same time, hopping about together and squawking to each other, so I suspect they still haven't laid eggs. Soon there will be too many leaves on the trees to see them clearly. There's been a recent complication in the shape of a couple of carrion crows - also collecting nesting material - who seem to be encroaching on the magpies' territory. One magpie hops around a nearby pine tree presumably distracting the crows from the magpie nest site and there are chases through the trees both crows chasing magpies and vice versa.
That path is a good area for birds it's also the usual haunt of three or four wood pigeons, a few longtailed tits, blue tits, great tits and a coal tit, plus a wren, a robin (the remaining robin from three or four earlier in the year - presumbably the winner in the territorial fight), blackbirds, a songthrush and on one occasion a goldcrest. At least three grey squirrels as well.
No Comments/Trackbacks for this post yet...