Have a look around you. You’ll see them everywhere. In our back gardens. In our parks. On our rooftops. And right now, circling over my head as I write this.

Loud, aggressive and faintly sinister, magpies are the bad boys of the bird world. Forget vultures and ravens, magpies are straight out of hell and are, I’m convinced, Alfred Hitchcock’s inspiration for ‘The Birds’.

Magpies first arrived in Ireland in 1676, which was around the time Oliver Cromwell arrived here (surely no coincidence). Possibly it was the black markings of the bird which made people superstitious, but for whatever reason magpies were seen as a bad omen. The phrase ‘One for sorrow’ soon became associated with them.

To protect themselves against suffering, people began to make the sign of the cross when a magpie was spotted. They would then raise their hat to the bird or spit three times over their right shoulder saying “Devil thee, devil thee, I defy thee”.

Dubliners got their first glimpse of magpies in 1852 and they have been here ever since. The city now has one of the highest densities of magpies in the British Isles. They are the 8th most populous bird in the country, according to Birdwatch Ireland with an estimated 160,000 breeding pairs now flying around our skies.

The worst thing about magpies is you hear them before you see them. They have a very distinctive cackle, which to my mind sounds like one of those old football rattles. When three or four of them get together it sounds like Manchester United are playing in your backyard. Their high-pitched cackle is annoying enough for us humans, but it scares the hell out of songbirds.

Magpies are bully birds. Watch these cock-sure predators strut around chest out, tail held high. They’re instinctive killers who’ll take the eggs and the young of smaller birds. Just to rub it in, they’ll take the nest as well. Magpies have also been known in this country and abroad to catch and kill frogs, lizards, snakes, bats, mice, voles and rabbits.

A gentleman in my locality informed me that he witnessed a flock of magpies swoop down from the sky and attack a cat. The poor animal didn’t stand a chance and was pecked to death by the angry ‘pies. Clearly they are not be trifled with.

But before you all start reaching for you pellet guns and air rifles, there are less violent methods of protecting little birdies from magpie massacre.

Good habitat is the key. Thick cover in gardens provided by hedges, bushes and creepers will help shield the like of sparrows, thrushes and robins. You can also help by feeding little birds within a wire-netting cage with a mesh which excludes the magpie. It may not look pretty, but if it deters our feathered foe, it’s well worth the effort.

A more novel solution to the overpopulation of magpies might be to import great spotted cuckoos from southern Europe. These clever fellows have got one over on magpies by laying eggs in their nests, thus reducing the chance of magpie eggs breeding. Nice work cuckoos!