One for sorrow among the joy WINTER’S WILDLIFE

Italian composer Rossini was way off-key when he featured a conniving magpie in one of his most famous operas.

La Gazza Ladra tells the story of a thieving bird that leaves a young serving girl facing the scaffold when it flies off with a precious silver spoon.

While the innocent Ninetta is acquitted of theft in the final scenes of the opera, you have to ask if

Rossini really knew his arias from his elbow when it came to birds.

Scientists have discovered that far from being bewitched by trinkets, magpies are positively scared of shiny objects – so their long-held reputation as jewellery thieves is much misguided.

That said, these dazzling crows, with their iridescent black and white plumages, are sly and ruthless killers of baby birds and are quite happy to exhibit their nest-raiding skills to shocked audiences. Even as a life-long bird lover, I had to contain my revulsion a few weeks ago while witnessing scenes of pitiless brutality – an ordeal made all the worse because I had been defending the reputation of magpies at a village hall talk a few nights earlier.

We were settled around the dining table beginning our evening meal when the anguished calls of our resident robins were accompanied by the sight of a marauding magpie with its beak clasped around a newly hatched chick. Somehow, the devious scoundrel had discovered the robins’ nest and was systematically plundering the contents.

Despite our loud bangs on the window and the furious barking of our enraged spaniel, the magpie carried the fledgling off – the poor mite being the last of an entire brood.

My defence of magpies as attractive garden birds still hangs heavily.

Having seen the UK population balloon by 93% to more than 600,000 pairs since 1970, we have to reluctantly accept they have become established as highly successful suburban predators.

Yet nature, for all its perceived cruelty, balances out.

The robins look as if they will be raising a brand new brood any time soon.