Magpie Nesting: Nests, Eggs and Chicks

This page is about the Eurasian Magpie, the magpie of Britain and Europe: when and where it nests, the domed nest itself, eggs, chicks and the young once they leave. For identification, calls and lifespan, see the Magpie guide.

Early. Magpies can start building as early as December in Britain, and the peak time for first eggs is mid-April.¹ In the BTO's nest records, first clutches are laid on average on 22 April, between 8 April and 4 May. Magpies raise one brood a year.²

Usually high up, in the top of a tall tree. In places with few trees they make do with a stunted shrub, a mast, an electricity pylon or an old building, and in some places even the ground, sheltered by heather, a wall or rocks.¹ In Britain the Breeding Bird Survey now finds magpies most often in towns in the breeding season.²

A magpie nest is big: a mass of sticks and twigs with a roof over the top and an entrance at the side, guarded by thorny twigs. Inside is a deep cup thickly lined with soft material such as wool, fur, grass and feathers. Where twigs are hard to find, a nest has been built entirely of wire, and magpies living near people often work wire, string and other man-made bits into the nest.¹

Not every nest has a roof. In towns as many as 32% of nests have no roof.¹ In a study in the Iberian Peninsula, nests built later in the season had denser roofs, which fits the idea that the roof is protection against nest predators.³

Both birds build. The female does most of the building and the male brings most of the material, and a nest takes from one to eight weeks, depending on how experienced the pair is and how easy the sticks are to find.¹

Usually not: most pairs build a new nest each year, though some repair an old one, especially where nest sites are scarce.¹ Town magpies re-use nests more often. In south Manchester some urban magpies renovated an old nest, which was uncommon in the countryside, and laid earlier as a result.⁴ In Sofia, 17% of pairs in the city re-used an old nest, against 7% in the countryside nearby.⁵

Old magpie nests do not go to waste: Long-eared Owls, Sparrowhawks and falcons nest in them, such as Kestrels in Turkey.¹

Mostly in April. In Britain the first eggs are laid around 22 April on average, and the BTO's range for first clutches runs from 8 April to 4 May.²

A clutch is usually 5 or 6 eggs, though British nests have held from 2 to 9. The eggs are pale blue or blue-green, with olive or buff spots and speckles, sometimes more thickly at one end, and measure about 34 by 24 mm (1.3 by 0.9 in).¹

The female incubates alone and the male feeds her on the nest.¹ In British nest records the eggs hatch after about 20 days, between 17 and 23.5.²

Both parents feed the chicks, the male doing most of it.¹ The young leave the nest at about 26 to 31 days old; across 2,789 British nests the average was 28 days.² Town pairs in south Manchester often tried again after a failed nest, which raised the number of young they fledged by 25%; at 1.55 young per pair a year, their breeding success was one of the highest recorded for the species.⁴

Young magpies stay dependent on their parents for several weeks after leaving the nest, and in autumn they join flocks of non-breeding birds.¹ People sometimes ask why they never see baby magpies. After about four weeks in the domed nest, the young come out looking much like their parents, only duller: the black is sooty, without gloss, the white is tinged buff, and there is bare grey skin around the eye. By late summer they look much like adults.¹

Carrion Crows take magpie eggs and young. In a Cotswolds study, pairs that nested near crows raised fewer young.⁶ Across Britain, the number of young fledged per nesting attempt rose strongly until the 1990s and has since levelled off; fewer nests now fail at the egg and chick stages, and magpies lay much earlier than they used to, perhaps partly because of climate change.²

Magpies are not nest-box birds: the magpie is not on the BTO's lists of birds that use nest boxes; it builds its own domed nest in a tree.⁷

A magpie nest, like any wild bird's, is protected while it is in use or being built. In England and Wales it is an offence intentionally to take, damage or destroy it; in Scotland the law adds "recklessly" and covers any other interference⁸; in Northern Ireland, as in Scotland, the offence covers acting intentionally or recklessly, and includes stopping a bird from using its nest.⁹ The general licences that cover magpies allow authorised people to act against them for set purposes: see legal status.¹⁰

The Black-billed Magpie of western North America also builds a domed nest of sticks, with a mud bowl inside.¹¹ The Australian Magpie, a different family altogether, builds an untidy open bowl of sticks with no roof, often with fencing wire worked in, and some groups dive at intruders near the nest.¹²

1. Kirwan, G. M., Madge, S., Christie, D. A., Perlman, Y. (2025). Eurasian Magpie (Pica pica), version 1.1. Birds of the World (G. M. Kirwan, editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology. doi:10.2173/bow.eurmag1.01.1
2. BTO. Magpie (Pica pica). BTO BirdFacts. Accessed 11 October 2026. Source
3. Quesada, J. (2007). The different roles of the roof density and nest size in the Iberian magpie nest. Acta Ethologica 10(1): 41-45. doi:10.1007/s10211-007-0027-9
4. Tatner, P. (1982). The breeding biology of magpies Pica pica in an urban environment. Journal of Zoology 197(4): 559-581. doi:10.1111/jzo.1982.197.4.559
5. Antonov, A., Atanasova, D. (2003). Re-use of old nests versus the construction of new ones in the Magpie Pica pica in the city of Sofia (Bulgaria). Acta Ornithologica 38(1): 1-4. doi:10.3161/068.038.0104
6. Vines, G. (1981). A socio-ecology of magpies Pica pica. Ibis 123(2): 190-202. doi:10.1111/j.1474-919x.1981.tb00924.x
7. BTO. Nest boxes for birds. BTO, Helping birds. Accessed 11 October 2026. Source
8. UK Parliament (1981). Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, section 1. Accessed 11 October 2026. Source
9. UK Government (1985). The Wildlife (Northern Ireland) Order 1985, Article 4. Accessed 11 October 2026. Source
10. Natural England (2026). GL40: general licence to kill or take certain species of wild birds to conserve wild birds, flora or fauna. Accessed 11 October 2026. Source
11. Trost, C. H. (2020). Black-billed Magpie (Pica hudsonia), version 1.0. Birds of the World (S. M. Billerman, editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology. doi:10.2173/bow.bkbmag1.01
12. Russell, E., Rowley, I., Christie, D. A. (2020). Australian Magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen), version 1.0. Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie and E. de Juana, editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology. doi:10.2173/bow.ausmag2.01