I’ve got a family of Australian magpies who come down for a daily feed of whatever I’m making for dinner (or leftovers from the night before). Got acquainted with the mother first, then dad starting hoovering around when they had a chick I guess…and a couple of weeks ago, they proudly introduced their ‘baby’ who was just as big as them but squawked like crazy only stopping (briefly) when they shoved a sliver of meat into it’s hungry mouth.
Making dinner tonight, I saw the baby alone in my backyard, so threw out the obligatory bits of meat, and it just sat there like a shag on a rock (sorry for the cross-species metaphor). A few minutes later the mother bird came down, picked up a bit of food and stashed it in one of my potplants. She then gave the baby a bit (no squawking btw), picked up another and** hid it in the wheel of an old bbq**. She sat on my birdbath just ruminating for a while, and flew off.
Baby bird is not moving much, is getting harassed by some very vocal Indian Mynahs and some Blackbirds. It’s looking a bit sad really, yet I wonder if this is normal ‘bird weaning’ or whether the baby is not long for this world and the mother is just providing a source of food if perchance the baby perks up again.
I can’t answer the question - but farking hell??? You’re encouraging magpies with kids to hang around?
As aussie magpies different to what we get in NZ - back home the parent birds are rather vicious and known to attack trespassers. I sure as hell wouldn’t want a family of magpies round my family…
Same birds but they’re not nesting here: just come for food, and they are remarkably tame! The 4yr old has fed the older birds by hand, so I’m not panicking about them being swooped.
But yes, I have terrible memories of being 5yrs old and forced by my older sister to walk to the shop via a maggie nesting tree getting swooped the whole friggin’ way. Actually, that’s one of the things I have never forgiven her for. :mad: Nesting magpies are horrid things…but a tame one? They’re a joy to have around.
As it turns out, I think the baby magpie is fine. Spoke to my son who fortuitously rang at the right time, and he had the same problem himself. He has previously rung the RSPCA for advice, and apparently the parent magpies essentially dump the kid in a ‘safe’ place to grow some balls. This time frame can last for up to a month with the parent bird keeping an eye on proceedings, making sure the kid gets some food and is not attacked by predators. Thankfully there’s no cats around here (that I have seen anyway).
In the last hour, the baby bird has been jumping around the yard: it FOUND the meat that the parent bird had hidden in the BBQ wheel!
At the moment it’s taken refuge next to my parsley patch, next to a low brick wall which will provide some radiant heat overnight I guess. Also keeps it relatively hidden from the insane Mynahs and now Mudlarks (looks like the Blackbirds have retired for the night).
So I’ll ask for this thread to be closed, unless you wanna swap magpie stories? Might see if I can get it moved to MPSIMS…
I personally never got swooped too badly - but I did have a friend that killed a rather swoopy Maggie. He was out on the golf course, and when swooped defended himself with a three wood.
I have heard of them drawing blood as well.
Never knew that parent Magpies were so clever or involved like that…how cool.
It was REALLY cool to watch it all unfolding. To see the parent (actually, I think it was the father from the colouring, not the mother) devise a ‘plan’ to look after his kid, well let’s say I’ve never seen anything like it before.
Exactly the same bird. They’re not native to NZ, they’re an introduced pest.
Never mind drawing blood. They peck the eye out of about 3 people every year on average. As in permanent blindness, gaping, bloody eye socket.
They also cause around 100 accidents requiring hospitalisation, including permanently crippling about 1 person a year and leading to the death of about one every 5 years.
Oh Blake, they are gorgeous animals. Most wild critters will harm you in some way if you threaten them: the maggies are just a wee bit overprotective during nesting season, that’s all. Just need to remember to wear a bucket or a hat with eyes drawn on the top.
I was once entertained a good few minutes by some magpies mobbing a siamese cat, chasing him further and further down the block, walking along behind him having a shout. He slunk down the road, they’d follow. He’d look back and keep slinking. He slunk nearly the whole length of the block in the road, being squawked at angrily the whole time till he finally turned into someone’s yard and made for their garage. The birds looked smug, like, ‘And stay out!’
I was reading up on Australian Magpie swooping behaviour, and it appears that only 9-10% of magpies engage in attacking people.
They have an acute eye and memory so if you have previously given them a hard time, they’ll go after you again! Woe and betide anybody who looks like you or is wearing similar clothes.
The victims of choice are mostly young men 15-30 (who are probably more apt to give them a hard time), or people on bikes especially POSTMEN on motorbikes. Apparently the magpies know what time it is too, so if they swooped you yesterday at 10.30 am, you’re a goner if you walk or cycle the same route at the same time today.
The *remedy *of choice, if you’re on a bike or motorcycle, get OFF and look at the bird. They really don’t like helmets because, whilst (in urban areas) they’re totally familiar with people, that thing on your head (especially with toggles or eyes painted on it) makes you look like some alien that is a greater threat.
It’s been a great experience having them hang out in my backyard, and I now know more about the birds than ever before, but the baby (and the parents) have moved on to greener pastures. Which is good, because I’m moving out next week and I didn’t want them too dependent on my largesse and tolerance, just in case the people who move in are freaked out by magpies.
