magpie just killed starling

[lucy78green]

I came home from work at 5pm to hear birds shrieking in my garden. I noticed a magpie attacking a starling. The magpie flew away when I came up the path but the starling was dangling upside down and didn't appear to be able to escape. I went in the house and looked out the window and the magpie had come back and appeared to be eating it alive. My mother wanted to rescue it, but I reckoned it probably had a lot of injuries and would just die a slow painful death if we rescued it, unless she was prepared to kill it. We couldn't watch though so went to the back of the house and came back half an hour later and it was dead. My dad went to take it down and said it had a black thread wound around it's leg which was tangled in the tree. I don't know where the thread came from unless it was already attached to it's leg, as all the bird feeders are attached with thick white string. I'm feeling a bit guilty for not rescuing it but I thought I couldn't do much and magpies have to eat too?????

[Kayleigh]

It is very distressing to watch. But as you say the poor starling would have died slower and more painfully if you had interfered..

It sounds to me like the starling was stuck and the magpie is just an opportunistic bird and saw it as an easy meal just dangling there.
They do survive on dead and dying animals.
Try to put it out of your mind and carry on watching wildlife. There will always be good things just around the corner.

[Bub-les]

very distressing for you but I think you did the right thing.
Barbara

[lucy78green]

thanks, the magpie is now sitting in the tree outside my garden - obviously wondering where the rest of his dinner went or else on the lookout for more victims.

[nightshade]

Crows,Magpies, always eating from the gutters (roof)

[zebbidy100]

I to had to be cruel to be kind. A Magpie was pecking at a Starling in my front garden, and the other starling's were chirping away at the Magpie I chased the Magpie away. The starling's little brain was coming out of it's head it was still alive but was not going anywhere It could not fly. I took the injured starling and placed it in a box and put it in the shed untill it died. I felt so helpless I did not know what else to do? It was so upsetting I hope I done the right thing?

[solus]

Might have been better to leave the poor thing to its fate - as it is, the Magpie may have had to find another "victim" for lunch....

[nightshade]

Once the Starling was caught and injured/killed it became a waste to take it away from the predator, harsh but a fact of life

[Pipa]

whaaat!! magpies kill adult starlings?? i thought they only went after the young/eggs in the nests, going to keep an eye on the magpies in my area in future

try not to feel guilty, i know its hard because it breaks my heart when you see injured birds or ones that are being attacked by cats or other birds and i feel guilty too for not being able to do more to protect them, sometimes its just too late and all we can do is watch helplessley

[shadowx]

But by denying the predator that kill you are likely to be starving it's young to death.

You save one baby only to kill another.

I saw a crow pick up a baby malard from the pond at work and start tearing it apart on the roof, wasnt much I could do but there wasnt anything i *wanted* to do, the likelihood is the magpie will go and regurgitate that food to its own young and in the process enhance the survival of 3 or 4 birds. I wouldnt go out whacking baby birds to feed to another bird but it's not my place to choose which one lives or dies.