The baby magpie's back!

When we last left our heroine, she was being awakened every morning by the warbling of Mama Magpie, and, more to the point, the raucous, greedily demanding calls of Baby Magpie.

I've decided that the baby magpie is male. 

For one thing, he's a big fella, and it's disgraceful that he follows his mother around, asking to be fed at the stage.  For another, he's perfectly capable of getting food himself.  I've seen it.  He will pick something up, like the scraps his obliging human has tossed, eat it, and then cry out for his mother to feed him.  Mama tries her best to ignore him, feeling, quite justly, that she's done her duty and Junior can fend for himself.  Not so.

Disdain him as she may, her little - scratch that - large offspring follows her around, bellowing out loudly, and will not take 'no' for an answer.  Mother ignores him for as long as she can, wandering here and there trying to get her own breakfast, and then, in despair, picks up something edible and shoves it down his gullet.  That pacifies him for a bit.

Yep, must be a boy....