A Woodpigeon has been very obviously building in a nest in a dense 10ft cypress tree visible from the front window. Today, at lunchtime, a Magpie shot in half way up the tree at about the level of the pigeon nest, at which point a female Blackbird exited from the top. The Magpie flew off with something from near the top of the tree, was back within a minute and emerged with a Blackbird egg which it cached in a dip in the lawn at the foot of the tree concealing it with a dead beech leaf, then flew back into the tree and flew off with a pigeon egg, all within a couple of minutes. I had not known about the Blackbird nest. Did the Magpie know it was there, or was it just its good luck that its attack on the well-advertised pigeon nest flushed another species? We hunted for the cached egg and and unfortunately managed to stand on it. However, we re-covered it, and at dusk I checked the cache site and only broken shell remained.
