Maggies

The Australian Magpie is a very common bird and a group (?) of them have suddenly dropped in on us for food. It is quite flattering that these birds deign to honour us with their presence. I firstly fed them some scraps of cooked meat and they picked it over eventually eating it all, so I thought I would go and buy a dog salami. It isn't really a Salami, or as the Americans call it, a Bolony. It looks good enough to slice up for a stir-fry, but the maggies don't fancy it all that much so I dumped that in the landfill bin and sliced up a small amount of the pork fillet which is/was for this evening's stirfry. The maggies loved it and a couple were so keen that they were eating out of my hands.

Maggies can get a bit mean around breeding time and many people are 'swooped' by a maggie as they pass by a nest. They are like an exocet missile, (you remember the Falklands war) very silent until they hit your head with a sharp beak. People in the know wear a hat and wave their hands around to discourage these attackers when passing tall gum trees.

When I was a kid, there was a friend whose family had raised a maggie by hand and it was a frightening watch-bird; much like a nasty rooster.

I expect that I will be reminded to attend feeding by beaks tapping on the glass door to our BBQ area.