Of all birds it is probably the magpie that is most associated with superstitions. However, most superstitions regarding magpies are based around just one bird. Throughout Britain it is thought to be unlucky to see a lone magpie and there are a number of beliefs about what you should do to prevent bad luck.
In most parts of the UK it is believed that you should salute the single magpie and say “Good morning Mr Magpie. How is your lady wife today?” By acknowledging the magpie in this way you are showing him proper respect, so that he doesn’t curse you with his bad luck.
In Yorkshire magpies are associated with witchcraft and you should make a sign of the cross to ward off evil. And in Scotland a single magpie seen near the window of a house is a sign of impending death, possibly because magpies are believed to carry a drop of the devil’s blood on his tongue or in another legend because he was the only bird that didn’t sing or comfort Jesus when he was crucified.
Rossini wrote a tragicomic opera entitled La Gazza Ladra (The Thieving Magpie) about a French girl accused of theft who is tried, convicted and executed. Later the true culprit is revealed to be a magpie and in remorse the town organises an annual ‘Mass Of The Magpies’ to pray for the girl’s soul.
They have also been known to kill small pets such as guinea pigs.
An England football flag, a pair of underpants, two white socks and a soft toy are among the unusual objects recovered from the nests of red kites.
The birds of prey are known for their tendency to steal items of clothing from washing lines to make their nests.
Their odd haul also includes a glove, a sponge ball and the greying underwear, the RSPB revealed.
The knick-knacks were found in nests across the north east of England where the birds were reintroduced into Gateshead’s Derwent Valley four years ago.
Two of the older kites, which were the first pair to breed in Gateshead since 1834, also became grandparents at the age of four.
bird of prey with a wingspan of almost two metres – became extinct in the north of England during the early 1800s
Ornithologists from the University of Oxford discovered a 2,500 year old bird’s nest on a cliff in Greenland. The nests belong to gyrfalcons – the largest species of falcon in the world – and is the oldest nest ever discovered.
They also found three other nests that are more than 1,000 years old and feathers from a bird that lived more approximately 670 years ago. The nest have been used by generations of gyrfalcons, who return on a regular basis.
Gyrfalcons are not the only birds who return to their nests year after year for thousands of years.
By carbon dating solidified stomach contents, peat moss deposits and bone and feather samples from various moulting sites, researchers have in the past shown that colonies of snow petrel have returned to the same sites for 34,000 years and adelie penguins for 44,000 years
An article by Jeffrey Kastner in Cabinet magazine features an “unusual artistic collaboration between the French artist Hubert Duprat and a group of caddis fly larvae”:
A small winged insect belonging to the order Trichoptera and closely related to the butterfly, caddis flies live near streams and ponds and produce aquatic larvae that protect their developing bodies by manufacturing sheaths, or cases, spun from silk and incorporating substances—grains of sand, particles of mineral or plant material, bits of fish bone or crustacean shell—readily available in their benthic ecosystem. The larvae are remarkably adaptable: if other suitable materials are introduced into their environment, they will often incorporate those as well. . . .
After collecting the [caddis fly] larvae from their normal environments, [Duprat] relocates them to his studio where he gently removes their own natural cases and then places them in aquaria that he fills with alternative materials from which they can begin to recreate their protective sheaths. He began with only gold spangles but has since also added the kinds of semi-precious and precious stones (including turquoise, opals, lapis lazuli and coral, as well as pearls, rubies, sapphires, and diamonds) seen here. The insects do not always incorporate all the available materials into their case designs, and certain larvae, Duprat notes, seem to have better facility with some materials than with others. Additionally, cases built by one insect and then discarded when it evolves into its fly state are sometimes recovered by other larvae, who may repurpose it by adding to or altering its size and form.
