Massacre

Gardening close to where a honeysuckle hangs heavy over some elder I hear the feint squeaking of baby birds. Peering in through a gap in the foliage I spied 4 baby blackbirds beaks up to the sky mouths open and mother feeding them. Excited. I spoke to my neighbour about them. I resisted the urge to look through as much as possible but occassionally had a peek. Sometimes they are cheeping, sometimes their bodies just breathe heavily.

Coming back from a quite jaunt to Town on Saturday I a quick look and found the nest empty. My neighbour came out and told me there had been a ruccous an hour ago when 3 blackbirds were fighting with a magpie, they attacked him to no avail - his superior size meant he had not fear and got all four of the baby birds out of the nest and pecked three of them to death. The fourth one my neighbour rescued and put into the ivy at the back of his house but its hard to see how it may survive. 3 blackbirds against 1 marauding magpie. Perhasp thats why they call them a murder. We felt terrible.