14 magpies

Yesterday, I saw 14 magpies on one of the big trees in the green at the front of the house. It was quite a sight. Unlike a lot of people, we like magpies. Last year, 2 fledglings had fallen from a tree into our back garden - not a good spot! Remember that Willow likes chicken! To him, these 2 little helpless birds looked like the next best thing to cooked chicken!
We discovered them when we saw the fledglings' mother (or father?? - I'm not sure how to distinguish them) sitting on the ground 2 metres away from Willow and hitting its beak against a tree, causing a racket and trying to distract Willow away from its young. Willow hadn't seen the fledglings at that stage, but he could smell something was up.
So we spent the next week protecting the 2 fledglings - keeping Willow indoors most of the time, and putting the fledglings in a box in the shed whenever Willow was allowed outside. We even left out some food and water out for the 2 poor things. They could not fly yet. The best they could do was flap their wings and jump into the bushes. Day by day, they were getting stronger and were able to take shelter higher up in the trees.
One day, sadly, we found one of them dead in the back. It must have died of stress or cold. There were no marks on it. We're pretty sure Willow isn't guilty.
The other one (we had called him "Scruffy", as he looked to be the weaker one of the two) flew off one day.
Here is some information on magpies if you'd like to find out more about this fascinating bird: Magpie