what do magpies like to eat appart from baby birds

[Littlesparrow]

This year we have one magpie visiting the garden. I can tell it is the same one because it has a broken leg. It flies off with lamb chop or pork chop bones and roots around in the grass for any rabbit food left over from me moving the runs.I haven't seen this particular bird catch any other birds,I don;t think it can move quick enough. The same can't be said of the sparrow hawk which moves like lightening, and does kill birds from time to time.

[bigdave60dog]

Just pray that you get another one. Remember"One for sorry, two for joy ----etc.
Yeah they will eat most things but prefer meat. They love pork sausages.
They are not the same as a Sparrowhawk catching live prey. Sparrowhawks are much more efficient at killing.
It is not right to put our values onto animals. You only think as you do according to your socialisation. All different societies have different values. These change over the years.
I was given my first penknife when I was five years old and always carried a penknife with me wherever I went after that. Most of my school friends were the same. They were tools rather than weapons. No-one would dream of attacking anyone with their knife. Now I live in Scotland where it is illegal for me to carry my penknife and, kids at school with knives? Oh horror of horrors.
My family killed three pigs every year split between three families. We killed and dressed them ourselves, then salted the meat into Ham and bacon. As a child I loved pig killing days. so did our dogs and cats. My Grandad would take the still warm bladder from the pig. Blow it up into a balloon then tie off the end so that I could use it as football.
He came from the time when rabbits were caught in gin traps. He told me that cats often got into the traps as they went down the rabbit holes after rabbits. He said that they were so badly injured that he had to kill them with his penknife. He described to me as 7 year old how to do this in case the need should arise.
From the age of 9, I could kill and gut a rabbit in less than a minute. Then tuck it`s one back leg into the other to hang it on my belt.
I am describing this to demonstrate how our attitude to life and death has changed in 5 decades. Wild things do not change according to fashion. Their values remain the same. they are the values that they need to survive.
Dave

[Littlesparrow]

I spent my childhood in a very rural farming community and must have been a lot tougher in those days, I won't go into detail because I don't want to upset anyone, but people had to make a living and it wasn't all petting the fluffy baby animals. Many years later I like to observe the wildlife and try to make at least part of my garden wildlife friendly. I admit I don't like to watch birds being caught and killed, but that doesn't mean I don't know its part of life.
The disabled magpie has been turning up in the garden on his own for sometime, and has never appeared with any others, does this mean the other magpies know there is something wrong with him and shun him?