jedidiah

Here s a little story I submitted and was published in my local newspaper

Gus' magpie story

sti'rs memories

~.

After reading Gus

Underwood's account in the

Free Press of his new guests,

the local magpies, it recalled

the experiences I had with

feeding the local magpies,

some similar and some not

so.

While living just outside of

town, I thought it would be

nice to have a pet magpie. but

alas I found they weren't

approachable, I suppose because

they were out of town

magpies and not used to

people and they probably

didn't need to come into contact

with people if they didn't

want to.

I wouldn't like a clipped

wing magpie. It's not fair and

it's illegal. So I asked the Lord

for a pet magpie. After

realising they weren't going to

fly onto my arm, nor did they

come near me, I heard the

inner voice "try feeding

them," which I believed to be

the Holy Spirit, and it worked.

Some scraps here and

there and they were regulars

on the back lawn, so I thought

who not buy them some pet

food. I found that they liked

the cylinder shaped dog food

wrapped in plastic and that

meant for even more of them,

which brought squabbles

which broke out into riots.

So not wanting to feel

responsible for contributing to

their rapidly increasing bent

behaviour, and in a grope for

order, I quickly decided not to

feed'them any more dog food

and constrained myself to

feeding them just. scraps

again ..

Yes, there seems to be a

dominant magpie in the pack.

In my instance, the biggest

magpie' usually took command

of the situation whenever

he/she came on the

scene (excepl'in the free for

all riots where I couldn't really

tell), I named he/she "Ollie"

after the saying "ollie,. ollie

oxen free." I also found the

boss magpie to be the most

friendly and approachable at

the time ..

But after a time a young

female magpie usually

lingered behind for a while

regularly, so I named her Jan.

The only way you can tell

males from� females is, according

to an expert on ABC

radio, that females stay grey

longer, or you need to be a

vet. So I think you could

assume that the magpies still

greyish from last season are

females.

One lunchtime on returning

from the long and sometimes

tiring trip to the mailbox, the

magpies were arriving for another

feed. I murmured in my

heart to myself "They don't

even bring me a worm," then

half an hour later I was sitting

outside when Jan flew in with

lizard in her beak and was

walking around with it, trying

to work her way over to me

and keep a safe distance at

the same time. Eventually she

used a leg of the table I was

sitting at as a bit of a buffer,

then looked at me for a while

and dropped the lizard beside

me. I said "thanks" and

reached out to touch her, but

she liked to keep just out of

reach.

So Jan became a faithful

friend and sat on the garden

posts sometimes while I was

gardening and sometimes followed

me along the 100

metres of driveway to the mail

box, flying to and landing on

the posts on the way. She was

regular company at smokos

(work was just nearby), sometime

sitting on the pruning

machine with me, again just

out of reach and the issue of

being there just for the food

faded away. I became satisfied

with the relationship and

the somewhat egotistical conquest

of making a sort of pet

from out of the wild.

Then, after ..a time she

didn't visit much, and I sensed

this was going to probably

lead to a final visit, which it

did, and later I recall from the

ABC radio similar stories of

befriended wild birds coming

back for what they sensed to

be the final goodbye.

Having moved from that

place now and still just out of

town, I once again fed the

magpies some scraps and

soon found a magpie warbling

quite lovely on the doorstep

for a substantial amount of

time that I just had to see what

it was all about and to find that

she had a worm there for me.

Apart from over feeding

them for a time, things worked

out well.

So it sounds like Gus might

have a couple of worms coming

his way, when the drought

breaks and their recession is

over.