Magpie

Australian Magpie

Recent happenings

A quick update on recent events. Firstly Curly the one-eyed currawong is still with us, and he seems to be doing quite nicely feeding himself despite his severe handicap. However, i think he is no longer associating with the other currawongs, but has attached hiimself to Vicky Magpie's family. Whether they approve or not I don't know, but he comes and goes when they come and go. He has become a bit more nervous in coming down to get food from us, though.

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This year's Magpie babies

Our magpies have been late this year with their babies. We understand why for Vicky's family, because after Maggie's passing it was July before Vicky settled on a new husband, a magpie from a long way away called Bertie. They then took a while to settle in and for Bertie to get to know the local situation.

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Problems for Vicky Magpie

Vicky and her new fellow, Bertie, have settled in and Vicky is now tending her nest. We are not sure whether she has hatched eggs, and we haven't been able to bring out our telescope due to the excessive wind and the big dust storms, which have been reported around the world. (We have to put the telescope in our breakfast room with the door wide open.)

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Bertie Magpie does the incredible

Vicky, Bertie, and Mindy are having trouble right now visiting our yard because the 'teenage' magpie crew think they own our front yard. I suspect this is only temporary because Bertie will eventually take charge and reclaim their territory. But for now, Vicky is nesting and, I suspect, is also is ambivalent about being stern with the teenage gang because her only son Monty is a member of it. So we have been walking along the road each day to say hello to Vicky's family and give them some bread and cheese. But yesterday when I went, something odd was going on.

I called the gang, but things were strangely quiet. Then I heard a horse's neigh - coming from above me. I looked up and there was Mindy, who promptly produced another neigh to make sure I didn't mistake who was imitating a horse. Why? Good question, but then Bertie explained it all to me in a way that was both unmistakeable and remarkable.

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Vicky recovered

Our queen Vicky magpie has been free of flu symptoms for a week now, so we are cautiously optimistic that she has beaten the illness that took our pied butcherbirds Gerry and Teddles. But the visits to the nest seem to have been a false alarm; no one has been sitting on any eggs this week as far as we can tell. So we took a walk up the road yesterday and asked our magpies what's up this year.

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