Magpie Drinking Red Wine in My Garden
Early last June I put up a very simple butterfly feeder, i.e. a small glass jar filled with red wine, honey and banana mash. To my great disappointment, it attracted hardly any butterflies. However, after a few days, strange things started to happen: Almost every morning I found the jar empty, lying sometimes several metres/yards away from the place I had left it. That went on for a couple of weeks without me having any clue about who the culprit was.
Then one day I noticed a young magpie fly in the direction of the "crime scene". As I carefully followed it, I saw it "red-beaked" at the jar. At that very moment I decided to try to catch its criminal act on video. And I did, eventually. But on one occasion only, as the parent of the young magpie got very suspicious and warned the young bird every time it saw even the slightest movement in the photo hide that I had built in my back yard.
After a couple of days I then took I took the feeder away as I didn't want the young magpie spoil its health by drinking too much alcohol.