As I have already confessed I was indoctrinated by my mother to salute single magpies.
I would no more pass one unsaluted than walk into busy traffic without looking right and left.

Consequently, I have developed the ability to spot a magpie by its flight at some distance and then to prime the saluting arm ready to salute at the appropiate moment and thereby avoid the dread consequences of the impending “One for sorrow “.

I have been driving around France a lot for the last months and I keep missing these moments.

Now fear not, Im not missing the Pies (as they call them there) altogether, I am just catching them much later.
It began to dawn on me that this was because their flight in France is entirely different to that of their Irish cousins.
In France they swoop and glide barely moving their wings.
In Ireland they have a staccato fluttering flight.

It wasn’t until I came back to Ireland this week that I was able to put this theory to the test.
On Sunday while driving back from Thomastown I spotted my first Magpie,
I caught the glimpse as before of the fluttering flight out of the corner of my eye and my arm, all of its own, got ready to salute.
It passed just in front of the car so I was able to see cleary that it was doing this in anything but a graceful parabolic glide.

So please can a twitcher out there tell me could this be true ?
And do Irish Magpies have to attend gliding classes before they can become Pies?