Magpie perching on my balcony

HiThere

HiThere

The Living Force
We have a lot of magpies in the neighbourhood, and lately one of them has taken to perching on the roof directly above my balcony where I sit and smoke. It has its tail end outside of the roof so it's droppings land on the railing where I like to have my arm. It doesn't respond to vocal commands or me making noise while sitting down, so now I've started to get up on the chair and ruffle its tail feathers until it grumpily takes to wings. I've always liked magpies, as they tend to keep the crows (which I dislike) away, but this bird dropping business is getting annoying.
They have never been fed by any of us, but today there was feathers and blood from a smaller bird on the balcony floor, and I think this is from a smaller bird that might have flown into the window and then been caught by the magpie while it was still dizzy. Why does the magpie insist on perching just there? Anyone have any similar experiences?
 
Magpies, like crows are very smart. I would imagine that food is the primary motivator. Maybe the Magpie thinks the situation with with the first bird hitting the window will happen again.
 
Hoping for food is the probable explanation, but it is remarkable that the magpie is so certain that I won't hurt it that it lets me touch it!
 
Hi There Hithere,

It sounds like it might have been somewhat domesticated and used to human contact, we had a similar problem with crows sitting on our gutters and making a mess but you might be able to construct some system to deter it from sitting there or at least that side? Perhaps some chicken wire covering its footing or little wire spikes (not to hurt it but to stop it from getting close enough to the edge). These methods were effective for us to deter some of our local avian friends from making a mess of our deck.

Hope this helps.

Regards.
Ivecky.
 
It hasn't perched there the last 24 hours, so maybe the ruffling got it to reconsider after all. Thank you for your responses! :)
 
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