It’s Spring, new life is everywhere, and magpies know it.
I’ve just found the explanation for our blackbird’s agitation:
A stranded baby bird below its nest.
Its precarious situation left it open to predation,
Then a magpie saw it – you can guess the rest.
It had realised with delight that it had the power of flight,
And had launched into the unsupporting air.
Blackbird Mum had seen its plight, but the magpie’s vicious bite
Soon ended weeks of nurturing and care.
Squawking, angry and forlorn at the death of her firstborn,
Blackbird Mum bewails her lot, her baby gone.
Now is her time to mourn; but there’ll be another dawn –
One down, still two to go. Life must go on . . .