Hi Shay,
ALL Birds are protected, we cant shoot ANY of them unless we meet the criteria for the General Licences.
Once those criteria are met, then its legal for us to do our thing
For example, a we have a good 5 or 6 Maggies in the gardens round here, can't shoot them at all until we have a lawful reason to do so, for example in the spring/summer, when they begin to start attacking the nests of our other birds like Black Birds, etc.
Our legitimate reason as required by the G.L's is then "to help preserve our songbird population."
Sean pinned up links to the current GL's for us,