Bird Life

I've been having a nice relaxing day in the garden in summer temperatures. There were a couple of starlings in the bush next to my bird feeder. They were making calls I hadn't heard before, and I thought they might be mating calls - but which was which? Then one jumped briefly on to the other (VERY briefly, typical male) and I knew.

Suddenly there was s lot of flapping and I thought I saw a pigeon deep in the bush. The starlings panicked. They knew better than me - it was a magpie, and it was obviously trying to hunt starlings. I stood up, clapped and shouted, expecting all three birds to fly away, but only the magpie left, the starlings appeared to be less scared of me than of the magpie.

A little later a starling (I don't know if it was one of the original pair) flew off the bush towards the fence - and collided with it! It didn't appear to be injured (maybe its pride) and it just wheeled round and flew away in the opposite direction.

Sadly all my lovely sparrows seem to have disappeared. Have they been hunted by the magpies, or have the local council's "improvements" destroyed their habitat and with it their capability to survive the winter?