Magpies.

Magpies.

Posted on 8 Jul, 2008 12 comments

In the West where I lived before there are magpies, but they are I think a different species than the ones in England. I do have a picture of the ones in my garden but it is on a CD so I have to go through the whole collection to find it, but I will! They are a rather big bird and very friendly, almost like pets. The only time they can be nasty is when they have a nest with young. When I walked the dogs in the morning in their nesting time, they’d see me approching from afar and swiftly fly and “swoop” low over my head. It is a warning sign and you’d better wave your arms as you go along until you have passed the trees they were nesting in. Trouble of course was, I never knew which one. And that was their only vice. Not nice, as they all knew me so well. Magpies are territorial and these always lived on our farm and stayed close to the house. I always fed them in the morning. Cut off crusts from the bread and out I went with them on the wooden bread board, slide them off with my hand and shake on the board for the last crumbs, thereby hitting my wedding ring on the board. This they heard and came flying straight from the tops of the trees, landing like a plane, beautifully in the garden. I got to know them and their young.
One day I noticed a young one hopping on one leg, the other dangling along, whilst it kept it up in the air. Poor thing. I wanted to know what was wrong and if I could possibly help it. So we deviced a method to catch the bird. We took my cane laundry basket, turned it upside down, then lifted it up on one side and stood it on a stick. The stick was attached to a rope, and you guessed it, the rope’s end was with us. We were just sitting on the veranda as usual, watching the birds, they didn’t mind us, they knew us well. We had been feeding them bird feed around and underneath the basket for 2 days, so they got used to it. Then that particular day when this poor birdy was underneath the basket and not another one as well, we pulled the stick away with the rope. Presto! We caught him. He had not enough power to push the basket up and escape. With leather gloves ( like faulkeners haha ) we went underneath the basket and caught the bird. It snapped at us, but we had gloves on. We saw that a feather had gone straight through its elbow and I didn’t want to pull it out, for fear of hurting the thing. So, in the box it went, lid closed and it shut up. I took it in the car to the vet. She was wonderful and pulled the feather out. Limpy, as we had named it, screamed a bit, but then was probably quite relieved. I took it back in the same box. Native animals get free vet treatment in this country. So when I got home I let it out and it was a bit dazzled, but soon took off. We saw it every day back with the others and it gradually started to walk again on two legs. I had been worried for it about sleeping in a tree on one leg, but the vet had told me that a lot of birds sleep like that. Well, I had learned a lot and we were quite pleased we could help our wildlife.

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