Thieving Magpie

"Other birds collect twigs for their nests. Magpies steal jewels for theirs."

— Flavor Text for Thieving Magpie, Magic: The Gathering

For added effect, listen to this as you read.

An Animal Stereotype: Magpies (and by extension other corvids such as ravens and crows) have a compulsion to steal, particularly in regard to shiny things. A common plot is for something to go missing, accusations of theft to be thrown around at everyone in sight, and the magpie to be revealed as the culprit at the last minute.

This stereotype is based on the commonly held (though actually false) belief that magpies collect shiny objects to line their nests in order to attract a mate. What is true, however, is that magpies and other corvids are intelligent animals with an innate sense of curiosity, and they may carry off unfamiliar objects such as jewelry simply to examine them more closely. So it's easy to see how people might think this was like a small-scale version of a Dragon Hoard.

This stereotype has also provided a handy Animal Motif for the occasional fictional jewel thief (for when cats are too much of a cliché).

See also Magpies as Portents, which is about the association of certain numbers of magpies with bad (or sometimes good) luck and the rituals for warding the bad luck off. See Penny-Pinching Crab for more greedy animals.

Compare Pesky Pigeons, which have similar annoyances.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Case Closed: In a filler episode, a murder of crows find the case's murder weapon and take it to their nest. Conan, Ai and the Detective Kids have to retrieve it. At the end of the episode, the crows chase the kids around, still angry because they messed around with the nest.
• In an episode of Hamtaro, a crow took shiny things from Laura's classroom and the children started blaming each other.
• In Pokémon: The Series, crow Pokémon Murkrow has appeared sometimes looking for and snatching shiny objects, such as Ash's badges.

Comic Books

• Batman: A minor villain is named Magpie for her kleptomania and the unfortunate birth name Margaret Pye.
• Alluded to in Blacksad with Cotton, a blind magpie who's always dreamed of going to Las Vegas.
• Tintin:
  • A thieving magpie is involved in "The Black Island" (but with a plot twist) when the firemen are desperately looking for their garage key.
  • The story "The Castafiore Emerald" takes its plot resolution from La Gazza Ladra (see Opera below). The "Eureka!" Moment comes when Tintin hears that Bianca Castafiore, still missing her emerald, will be performing in said Rossini opera — sure enough, he finds the jewel in a magpie's nest.
• In Lil i Put when Miksja turns bunch of Małoludii into various birds, Kieszonka the thief gets (ironically) transform into a Magpie - she dont mind as it only helps her stealing stuff.

Comic Strips

• In Dick Tracy, Haf-and-Haf first appears using a murder of trained crows to steal handbags.
• Lenore, Dethany's raven in On the Fast Track has a fondness for shiny things, including stealing people's keys.

Fairy Tales

• In the Arabian Nights tale "The Stolen Necklace", said necklace is actually stolen by a magpie, but a holy woman is unjustly accused.

Fan Works

• Pokémon Reset Bloodlines: In a sidestory focused on Astrid, she's so distracted daydreaming about her eight Gym Badges and her plans after the Kalos league, a Murkrow comes and snatches her badge case. Fortunately, she manages to get it back.

Films — Animated

• In Robin Robin, Magpie has a nest filled with shiny junk. He sings a whole song about the wonders of stuff which makes it clear he's trying to distract himself from being alone.
• In Rock-A-Doodle, Snipes, he is a magpie and the bright lights distract him a lot.
• In The Secret of NIMH, Jeremy (a Crow) was hypnotised by Brisby's stone.
• Titanic: The Legend Goes On: Hector, with the most important thing he appropriates being Angelica's locket.

Literature

• Daniel Handler's Adverbs features magpies throughout. In one story, a magpie steals a lost diamond from Handler's actual life and delivers it to a story written by another author entirely. He's a fairly odd bird himself.
• Discworld:
  • Quoth the Raven, a familiar of Death and friend to the Death of Rats, always pounces on shiny things in the vain hope that they might be eyeballs. He claims that this tendency is where his genus's reputation for thievery comes from.
  • In Carpe Jugulum, the vampyres' magpie mascots pinch Granny Weatherwax's gold-edged invitation to the naming of Verence and Magrat's baby. Cue Granny thinking she's been snubbed as she hasn't received her invitation, while everybody else in the kingdom has.
• In Alethea Kontis's Enchanted, a set of pirates sent to deliver gifts are Magpie and Crow, about which there is the line, "Mama would no doubt describe them as dirty rotten scoundrels with eyes on the silver."
• Firstborn: The magpie protagonist Maggie has husband who is an obsessive hoarder. It's one of the reasons she leaves him (and starts avoiding magpies in general).
• Guardians of Ga'Hoole: Trader Mags and her assistant Bubbles have been known to collect artifacts and other stuff humans (or Others, as the owls call them) had left behind after they disappeared. Otulissa dislikes her because she is collecting trash... until she checks the stuff out in "The Shattering" and praises the magpie.
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Dumbledore uses a "stealing magpie" analogy when referring to young Tom Riddle (the boy who would become Voldemort) after a flashback. This helps him and Harry understand Voldemort's behavior since then, including his use of Soul Jars.
• The Magic of Oz: Invoked when Kiki Aru, having learned a transformative magic word, turns himself into a magpie in order to steal a piece of gold from an old man.
• Redwall: A plot coupon in one of the books turns out to be in a magpie's nest.
• The Thinking Machine: In "The Rosewell Tiara'', Van Dusen investigates when a single diamond is stolen from a tiara inside a locked safe. The 'thief' turns out to be the owner's pet cockatoo, who has a penchant for shiny objects and who plucked out the diamond and swallowed it. How the safe came to be opened turns out to a completely separate mystery.
• Les Voyageurs Sans Souci: As learning how to fly, Agathe lands on a branch, right next to a magpie's hoard (full of glass fragments, keys, coins...). Outraged, the magpie tries to pluck Agathe's hairs and scratch her face, forcing the girl to jump off the branch. Later, Agathe finds out that same magpie pushed Ted off when the boy climbed the tree to retrieve his stolen switchblade knife.

Live-Action TV

• Batwoman (2019). Magpie is a jewel thief with claws, feathers, black outfit and magpie-shaped grenades. When she tries stealing a Fabergé egg, Batwoman tells her she's taking the bird theme too far.
• In the Doctor Who episode "Boom Town", the Slitheen disguised as Margaret Blaine described the Doctor as having a "magpie mind", i.e., one that's always collecting bits of information.
• In Elementary episode "Dead Clade Walking", Sherlock and Joan are trying to find a smuggler who deals in valuable but illegal artifacts. Said smuggler is called "the Magpie".
• On Good Eats, Alton is explaining the connection between the word "pie" (as in, a black and white pattern found on birds such as magpies) and "pie" (as in, the food). A magpie steals a bunch of Noodle Implements from Alton for its nest outside.

Music

• "Magpie to the Morning" by Neko Case describes a magpie that collects a marble, and plans a "Cousteau expedition" to find a diamond at the bottom of a drain. All of this is part of a plan to cheer up the song's depressed protagonist; the magpie drops the marble on a tin roof to wake up the protagonist, so that they can be warned not to "let this fading summer pass you by", and the diamond at the drain bottom can be interpreted as working through depression to find something worthwhile. So while this magpie is a thief, they're a kindhearted one.
• "Morning Mr. Magpie" by Radiohead (from The King of Limbs), in which a thieving magpie is used as a stand-in for greedy corporations.
  Good morning, Mr. Magpie
  How are we doing today?
  You've stolen all the magic
  And took my memories

Radio

• A sketch on John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme features Polly the Croco-pie, a Mix and Match Critter spawned by "an unusually docile crocodile and a quite heroically determined magpie".
  Narrator: The combination of her father's sharp eye for a glistening bauble, and her mother's mighty crocodilian jaws, made her an accomplished little thief and murderer, and barely a day would pass without her flying in through my bedroom window — open or not — with a diamond ring or sapphire anklet... often, regrettably, still attached to the attendant limb.

Tabletop Games

• Blackbirds RPG: Corvus, the (now-dead) god of death and thievery, was strongly associated with corvids and often appeared to mortals as a massive crow. One myth claims that he stole the north star itself from the sky to decorate his nest, only reluctantly returning it when coerced by the Norns, and it was common practice to sacrifice jewelry and other wealth to him in an attempt to win his favor.
• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • Both normal and giant magpies were described in the Creature Catalog, a monster book for Basic/Expert/etc. D&D. Their stats made them weak in combat, but excellent filchers of unattended shiny objects; in effect, they were a potential hook for the DM to lure parties into other encounters, by having a magic item snatched up by this trope's embodiment and forcing them to pursue it.
  • In Third Edition, spellcasters with a raven Familiar gain a bonus on the Appraise skill, notably used to determine the value of shiny things.
• Magic: The Gathering has a "Thieving Magpie" card; whenever it deals damage to an opponent, you get to draw a card (representing something that the magpie picked up).
• The "Freedom City" setting for Mutants & Masterminds has a Gentleman Thief named Magpie who can teleport, but never would he teleport into a building— he savors the challenge of breaking in the hard way. His power is used only for last-second escapes, and even then only if he can't vanish any other way.
• In Res Arcana, a raven's love for shiny objects gets a nod with the Raven Familiar card, whose power is triggered by you gaining gold. However, for gameplay reasons, it gives you a wild essence instead of stealing anything.
• Exists in the Highland Expansion for Talisman as a Follower. It allows the owner to take any loot drawn in an encounter first before dealing with anything else-normally, the player has to trigger any events drawn, kill any monsters, and deal with any strangers before getting the loot.
• Classic Traveller, Double Adventure 2 Mission on Mithril. One of the animals on the planet Mithril is the calamander. Calamanders are scavengers and will steal small items of equipment from the PCs' ATV (such as important nuts or bolts), forcing the PCs to track them down in their warrens to retrieve the items.
• The Blood Ravens chapter in Warhammer 40,000, as they have a startling amount of wargear that originally belonged to other chapters in their possession. Given a nod in one of the novels, where a visitor sees their trophy room and notes that it looks like a magpies' nest.

Theater

• The Trope Namer (and probably Trope Codifier) is Gioachino Rossini's La Gazza Ladra, "The Thieving Magpie", which is also something of a Spoiler Title; the titular magpie is revealed to be responsible for the thefts of silver cutlery that initially set off the plot. The music has been used as a Leitmotif for thieving characters in both A Clockwork Orange and Sherlock.

Video Games

• Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker: The Big Bad is a giant magical crow named Wingo. He's the antagonist because he wants shiny power stars. His towers even have tons of treasure in them.
• The Shrieker from Darkest Dungeon is a monstrous mutated corvid that will steal Trinkets from your inventory or dead heroes.
• Spiteful Crows in EarthBound can sometimes steal objects from Ness.
• The bird-like Kig-Yar (a.k.a. "Jackals") of Halo are directly compared to magpies as a whole for their thieving and pirating ways, with the Skirmisher subspecies being particularly attracted to shiny objects. Skirmishers also have large, black feathers adorning their arms and heads, unlike the other kig-yar with their sharp, quill-like feathers.
• In one of the Antique Store's side-quest in Hidden City, Alford Stone reports a robbery in his store, as several of his jewelries and letters have gone missing. When Rayden comes to investigate, he soon discovers that a raven had stolen the goods.
• In The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, there is a subquest to find a missing baby rattle, which turns out to be in a bird's nest.
• The Magpie symbol in Luck be a Landlord will remove 1 coin from your total per turn...but also returns 9 coins every 4 turns. Perhaps it thieves from others?
• Murkrow and Honchkrow from Pokémon is sometimes depicted with this habit. They apparently even get into fights with Meowth over shiny treasure.
• One Summoning familiar in Runescape is the Magpie, which is useful for thieves. Its special ability can boost the player's thieving skill.
• In World of Warcraft you can find a locked Merchant's Chest in Drustvar. To open it, you have to track down and kill the one Gorging Raven holding the key in a conspiracy of them overhead.

Web Comics

• The Archer And The Squirrel: A crow steals from Count Wylie and he sets out to kill the thief thinking it a human. When he discovers the crow in its gold filled nest he orders the bird shot but it escapes.
• Cursed Princess Club: Princess Monika of the Quilted Kingdom was once stuck in the form of a crow by an evil wizard who kidnapped her. Even after being rescued and mostly cured, she still turns into a crow when she gets anxious and retains crow-like habits when in human form. This most prominently includes kleptomania; she likes to covertly steal various things (especially if they're shiny) and store them in her dangerously cluttered room.
• The Order of the Stick: Blackwing, Vaarsuvius's raven familiar, has a penchant for "baubles". It's mostly Played for Laughs, though at one point he does snag a useful ioun stone when he attacks an enemy psion.
• Housepets!: Trinket is a dimwitted bird who fits this to a tee. From her minimal screentime, she seems to work for anyone who can benefit her, usually committing theft or cons and serving as the Sycophantic Servant to both Cory and Stewart in different arcs. Inverting this, she quickly realizes she's in over her head with the latter, but too late to back out.

Web Original

• Caw Cophony: In opening of the 1234 Subscriber Special, Crow mentions stealing her format for the video from fellow music reviewer Lyzette G. Her reason?:
  "That's what crows do. We steal. Deal with it."
• Codex Inversus: Hoarding magpies are birds with the ability to sense emotions such as material attachment, pride in owning this, excitement for a new acquisition, and fear of losing things, which they use to track down creatures that have recently obtained something, be it a squirrel's stash of nuts or a person with a new jewel, and nab it. During the mating season, males attempt to steal things that people find important so that the resulting feelings of grief will attract a female by telling her that a successful thief lives in the area.

Western Animation

• Alfred J. Kwak: One of Alfred's friends is a magpie named Pikkie ("Grabby"), who is actually compelled to steal anything shiny that he lays his eyes on, gaining Mind-Control Eyes in the process. This gets Alfred into a lot of trouble when Pikkie steals a crown jewel and Alfred ends up looking responsible. When the truth is revealed, the king pardons Pikkie since he couldn't help himself.
• Amphibia: In "After the Rain", Anne finally learns that Hop Pop buried the Calamity Box for safekeeping instead of giving it to his alleged "contacts", but also discovers the Box has gone missing. While Anne fumes about Hop Pop lying to her and losing the box, Sprig and Polly try to find the box themselves, and discover it's been stolen by an insect called a "magpie beetle".
• Clifford the Big Red Dog: In one episode, a crow snatches shiny things and keeps them in his nest, leaving Clifford to get blamed for stealing.
• The Crumpets: In "Crumperchés", a magpie steals Cassandra's heart necklace and the key for the chains Marylin strapped himself with to a tree to protest its cutting.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy: In one episode, a pigeon takes Eddy's quarter after he got it out of a sewer drainage. Later, while the trio are building a treehouse, Ed gets a nest with the same bird on top of him, which Eddy tries to catch again but fails.
• Fireman Sam: In "Thief in Pontypandy", a jackdaw (a bird similar to a magpie that is native to Europe) steals various trinkets from the residents of Pontypandy. When its nest is dislodged from Bella's chimney, in it they uncover Sam's watch, Dilys' earrings, Bella's necklace, and Steele's medal.
• Heckle and Jeckle are two wise-cracking magpies who, by trait, con their way into getting whatever they need. They also make life miserable for two dogs, a lugubrious bloodhound (Dimwit) and a tough bulldog (unofficially named Chesty).
• One Mr. Bean The Animated Series episode has one of these, and naturally Bean is framed for its theft.
• The animated short Peck Pocketed is about a magpie stealing an old lady's belongings.
• Postman Pat: In "Postman Pat and the Magpie Hen", Mrs. Thompson's hen runs off with Pat's keys, and he has to climb a tree to get them back. The nest also contains a few other stolen items, including a wedding ring. In the ending, Pat sees some real magpies, and wonders if they taught the hens to steal.
• One episode of Shaun the Sheep has the titular character dealing with one.
• Stōked: In "To Catch a Reef", a thieving seagull causes Reef to be accused of being a thief.

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