What the magpie left in the plate (6)
I believe the answer is:
salver
'plate' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'what the magpie left' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'left' could be 'al' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'al' is present in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'in the' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for salver that I've seen before include "A tray on which something is presented" , "A posh silver tray" , "A handsome silver tray" , "plate" , "A fancy metal tray" .)