Our garden magpies seem to have things in hand. I was most impressed how they were picking up sticks and stones from the road and then flying back to drop them on Little Monster Cat's head. I wish I had videoed it. LMC sat there looking angrier and angrier but they weren't coming low enough to risk a surface-to-air strike (and she can launch pretty high, but then she's not a lot bigger than a magpie). Of course, she just sat there while they bombed her demonstrating that corvids are smarter than cats. I doubt they felt it was a challenge.
Bad Cat, on the other hand, prefers to channel her inner Bill Oddie and get excited watching birds*. My wife took an hilarious video of her having a conversation with the magpies while I was away. She couldn't actually be bothered getting up to chase them so she did the whole thing lying down.
Oddly, they've pretty much stopped catching things she we moved to the 'country' – back in the urban sprawl they'd bring mice aplenty, frogs, entire pigeons, and pork chops. Since we moved here, a couple of mice and slow worms when we first moved in, but that's tapered off. Possible the fauna of the Surrey jungles is a bit more challenging.
*This is why I'm up and working at 7am, little sod is sitting behind the blinds in the bedroom making a racket every time she sees a bird flap by.
