Magpies in Moscow (1 Viewer)

[CharlesGerard]

Hello all! New to the site and excited to meet folks here. I am not a deep birder but I am very interested and often follow bird curiosity.

I have a research question for something I'm writing and could use some help with a couple of questions.

There is an old supertitious legend about a monarch banishing magpies from Moscow (in the stories it's sometimes Ivan the Terrible, sometimes Alexy). Setting the legend aside, I am trying to figure out just how rare it might be to see a magpie in Moscow, and for this research I'm wondering in particular how strange in might (or might not) be to see on in the city in the 1920s. It seems that magpies are sensitive to urban environments due to nesting behavior and it might just be true that they avoid cities in general.

So my questions:
1. Is it very unusual to see magpies in urban landscapes?

2. If anyone knows specific information about magpies in western Russia, or can speculate why Moscow would have this old reputation for magpie no-fly, please share!

Thank you,
Curiouser Me

 

[Andy Adcock]

Magpies are a common garden bird in the UK however, when I lived in St Petersburg, Russia, they were less common and very, very shy. The behaviour is probably because they have the space in Russia, which allows them to not have to live side by side with people, obviously the UK is much smaller so they don't have that luxury.

 

[Stonefaction]

Don't have any Russia specific Magpie info, but my local area in east central Scotland (around Dundee) had hardly any Magpies until maybe 10 years ago or so when their numbers began to build very gradually with the odd one or two being seen in the city, to the situation where they are now a very noticeable sight and sound throughout the city and surrounding area. It was speculated that their relative absence previously was as a result of persecution by farmers and gamekeepers etc over a long period of time. There seemed to be a virtual 'No Magpie' zone from near the river Forth in Fife to the south of Dundee, out to around Cumbernauld in the west, and up to around Stonehaven to the northeast. Within that area there were the odd few pairs in isolated spots but they showed little sign of spreading to fill in the spaces. Something seemed to change - maybe expansion in numbers from the surrounding areas where there were Magpies - and we now have Magpies everywhere. As they get a 'bad press', not everyone is keen to see them (I like them).

 

[CharlesGerard]

Magpies are a common garden bird in the UK however, when I lived in St Petersburg, Russia, they were less common and very, very shy. The behaviour is probably because they have the space in Russia, which allows them to not have to live side by side with people, obviously the UK is much smaller so they don't have that luxury.

Interesting insight! Yes, I could see how maybe it has to do with habitat preference where available.

 

[CharlesGerard]

Don't have any Russia specific Magpie info, but my local area in east central Scotland (around Dundee) had hardly any Magpies until maybe 10 years ago or so when their numbers began to build very gradually with the odd one or two being seen in the city, to the situation where they are now a very noticeable sight and sound throughout the city and surrounding area. It was speculated that their relative absence previously was as a result of persecution by farmers and gamekeepers etc over a long period of time. There seemed to be a virtual 'No Magpie' zone from near the river Forth in Fife to the south of Dundee, out to around Cumbernauld in the west, and up to around Stonehaven to the northeast. Within that area there were the odd few pairs in isolated spots but they showed little sign of spreading to fill in the spaces. Something seemed to change - maybe expansion in numbers from the surrounding areas where there were Magpies - and we now have Magpies everywhere. As they get a 'bad press', not everyone is keen to see them (I like them).

Super fascinating example, thank you! It's interesting that you describe a zone where they avoided for so long, not unlike the reputation that Moscow had, that the quirky legend then filled the gap to explain.

 

[Val35]

In France many cities have magpies in fact I associate this bird with urban environnements (or countryside but I've most often seen them near farms, villages...never too far from humans).As you can see there's plenty of magpie sightings in Moscow according to eBird, apparently it's not rare there :

 

[Xenospiza]

In the Netherlands and Germany, magpies actually like urban environments because there is less pressure from predators and crows (Carrion Crows are very intolerant towards magpies).
I assume the Hooded Crows in Moscow show a similar behaviour.

 

[kb57]

Showing my age again, but in NE England in the 1970s Magpies were pretty uncommon, and certainly not associated with urban areas. I was really surprised when I moved to Manchester in the late 70s to see how common they were as an urban bird there. @Stonefaction 's observations chime with this, and suggest a continuing range expansion / increasing abundance up the east coast.
There was certainly a lot more shooting of corvids in rural areas of NE England in the past - lots more people had shotguns and air rifles and could easily get permission from farmers to shoot crows and magpies. It's even possible that urban areas with less hunting pressure provided a refuge for magpies which were able to expand their population and range.

 

[Andy Adcock]

Showing my age again, but in NE England in the 1970s Magpies were pretty uncommon, and certainly not associated with urban areas. I was really surprised when I moved to Manchester in the late 70s to see how common they were as an urban bird there. @Stonefaction 's observations chime with this, and suggest a continuing range expansion / increasing abundance up the east coast.
There was certainly a lot more shooting of corvids in rural areas of NE England in the past - lots more people had shotguns and air rifles and could easily get permission from farmers to shoot crows and magpies. It's even possible that urban areas with less hunting pressure provided a refuge for magpies which were able to expand their population and range.

I used to visit my grandparents in Leeds, the journey through the countryside up the M1 from Nottingham was the only time I''d see Magpies in the 70's, none in the City.

 

[jurek]

1. Magpie has been a common bird associated with human settlements in Eastern Europe since at least the middle of 19. century. It should have been common in Russian towns in the 1920s.

2. There was no tzar in Moscow in the 1920s. It would be Lenin or Stalin who banished magpies from Moscow.

It could be an allusion to the big famine in the 1920s or another of Russian famines. Russian rulers precipitated the famine, and all magpies would be eaten by starving folk, like anything which was edible. However the 1920s famine was mostly rural Ukraine and Ural, with Moscow actually feeding off supplies robbed from the countryside.

Russian famine of 1921–1922 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Also, motifs of the Russian magpie story are similar to another old story about the Russian globe without continents. The Russian state delegation gifted to another ruler a globe, but without continents marked, only the ocean. The Russian ruler has not given the official position, so the Russian delegation seen the shapes of landmasses as undecided. The common motif is that absolute rulers in Russia want the objective reality to obey their wishful thinking: movements of wild birds, shape of continents, warm-climate crops growing in cold climate and so on. Also that Russians believe(d) that facts don't exist objectively and independently, but depend from whoever powerful declares them. Probably the Muscovites in the story pretended that magpies are pigeons and magpie shrieking was pigeon cooing or similar.

 

[CharlesGerard]

In France many cities have magpies in fact I associate this bird with urban environnements (or countryside but I've most often seen them near farms, villages...never too far from humans).As you can see there's plenty of magpie sightings in Moscow according to eBird, apparently it's not rare there :View attachment 1497097

This is very helpful. Great resource!

 

[CharlesGerard]

1. Magpie has been a common bird associated with human settlements in Eastern Europe since at least the middle of 19. century. It should have been common in Russian towns in the 1920s.

2. There was no tzar in Moscow in the 1920s. It would be Lenin or Stalin who banished magpies from Moscow.

It could be an allusion to the big famine in the 1920s or another of Russian famines. Russian rulers precipitated the famine, and all magpies would be eaten by starving folk, like anything which was edible. However the 1920s famine was mostly rural Ukraine and Ural, with Moscow actually feeding off supplies robbed from the countryside.

Russian famine of 1921–1922 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Also, motifs of the Russian magpie story are similar to another old story about the Russian globe without continents. The Russian state delegation gifted to another ruler a globe, but without continents marked, only the ocean. The Russian ruler has not given the official position, so the Russian delegation seen the shapes of landmasses as undecided. The common motif is that absolute rulers in Russia want the objective reality to obey their wishful thinking: movements of wild birds, shape of continents, warm-climate crops growing in cold climate and so on. Also that Russians believe(d) that facts don't exist objectively and independently, but depend from whoever powerful declares them. Probably the Muscovites in the story pretended that magpies are pigeons and magpie shrieking was pigeon cooing or similar.

Such fun and interesting background! In fact the piece I am writing has characters who came to Moscow from Volga as refugees to escape this famine. There are also foreign aid workers who stayed in Moscow after the worst of it passed in 1921.

And you have hit the purpose of my question - if there is a legend about magpies being banished by tzars long ago, maybe their return to Moscow after 1917 would be seen as a sign, omen, symbol of a new Russia. The legends I've seen are either Ivan the Terrible gathering accused witches to burn in Moscow, only to see them fly away from the flames as magpies (and never return), or Metropolitan Alexy simply banishing them from the city because he was worried they would be witches. It's interesting to me to think of magpies returning to post-revolution Moscow as a symbol that would be both hopeful and possibly foreboding.

Your comments about shaped realities and manipulated facts are fantastic. Their presence in the city could be newly noticed and interpreted as a sign without any actual shift in population. Researching this time period is also incredibly challenging, because there was such an effort to create a new history, with a campaign of document destruction and reports bent toward a particular conclusion, and the same thing happening in different forms from outside observers. Even the presence or absence of magpies could be caught in those turbid currents.

 

[kb57]

I used to visit my grandparents in Leeds, the journey through the countryside up the M1 from Nottingham was the only time I''d see Magpies in the 70's, none in the City.

I lived in a fairly rural area in the northern part of Co. Durham and we did have magpies, they were just never as numerous as I found in the Manchester area - and never saw them in urban areas around Newcastle where they are common today (despite the fact our football team is called 'the Magpies' and has been thus since the late 19th century...).

 

[Andy Adcock]

I lived in a fairly rural area in the northern part of Co. Durham and we did have magpies, they were just never as numerous as I found in the Manchester area - and never saw them in urban areas around Newcastle where they are common today (despite the fact our football team is called 'the Magpies' and has been thus since the late 19th century...).

My team is called the Magpies too.

 

[njlarsen]

Some old memories: I once heard an ornithologist in Denmark state that an apparent difference in magpie density was mostly appearance only: they learned to be very shy and rarely seen in areas with hunting but much more easy to see where hunting was less strong. However, even in the areas with low levels of observations, they could be found by those really knowing them.
Niels

 

[jurek]

Such fun and interesting background! In fact the piece I am writing has characters who came to Moscow from Volga as refugees to escape this famine. There are also foreign aid workers who stayed in Moscow after the worst of it passed in 1921.

Anyway, both ebird.org and ebba2.info show that Magpies are common in Moscow today.

Brief overview of Russian history tells that atrocities of the tzars were big, but atrocities of communists even bigger. So the magpies would do well to keep even further away from Moscow.

 

[CharlesGerard]

Some old memories: I once heard an ornithologist in Denmark state that an apparent difference in magpie density was mostly appearance only: they learned to be very shy and rarely seen in areas with hunting but much more easy to see where hunting was less strong. However, even in the areas with low levels of observations, they could be found by those really knowing them.
Niels

This is also an excellence consideration. It might be better, since I can be a little loose in fiction, to describe a surprising appearance of magpies in terms of unusual behavior and visibility, instead of trying to match precise population trends.