Magpie
Collecting — what you have been gathering, useful or not.
A magpie in a dream is the dictionary's image of collecting. Magpies in waking-life folk tradition collect shiny things; in dreams they often stand for the things you have been gathering — possessions, achievements, contacts, half-finished projects.
A magpie with a single shiny object is the dream gently pointing at one thing you have been clinging to that has stopped being meaningful. A magpie's nest crowded with things is the dictionary's image of a life that has accumulated more than it can use.
Where you often see it. A magpie at a roadside. A magpie picking at a small shiny object. The dream uses the magpie for collecting — what you have been gathering, useful or not.
What it is not. A magpie is not always thievery. The dictionary often reads it as the dreamer's accumulating instinct.
Related in the dictionary. Read magpie with crow, raven, and any scene of small shiny things being gathered.