They’re a little different to British magpies. Ours have white stripes across their wings. Do you have the weird superstition about magpies? Seeing one is bad luck. Seeing 2 is good luck. One is the sight you want to avoid. I didn’t know magpies from canaries until we moved here. People still believe the myth and I’m ashamed to tell you I now get a little worried if there’s a solo one. You can undo the harm by touching your forehead and saying “good day, Mr Magpie.”
There’s a rhyme about them too:
One for sorrow
Two for joy
Three for a girl
And 4 for a boy.
There probably used to be more, it sounds like a superstition hundreds of years old. I will neither confirm or deny saluting solitary magpies.
The rhyme I heard in a Counting Crows song - The Murder Of One I believe British Magpies are of the crow family. I’d don’t have a superstition about magpies, I see lots of them. the magpies down here don’t bother you but they tend to swoop during nesting season if walk under their tree. Some parks have signs with a warning. People have been injured by swooping magpies, in one tragic case, a mother carrying her baby in a sling on a walk got swooped, she fell over, her baby sadly was fatally injured. I can understand how superstitions start. My mother is superstitious about owls. One stayed around for days in a tree at night when her mother was sick. She recovered when the owl left.
Five for Silver
Six For Gold
Seven For A Secret Never To Be Told
Magpie!
Yes, we are also superstitious about seeing one on its own and must say “Good morning (or afternoon) Mr Magpie” if we see one on its own. Total nonsense of course- they don’t understand English anyway
I also don’t know if its true or not that they like shiny objects (I’ve never seen them go after them myself). Mostly they seem to fish around in the moss/debris in peoples’ roof gutters for insects etc in towns anyway