I heard a guru on radio talking about feeding birds in our garden. He made the usual disclaimers – don't give them human food, don't make them dependent, etcetera. Think of it, he said, like friends coming in for a cup of tea and a Tim Tam.
He warned about feeding magpies meat. Not enough calcium, he said. I recommend dog food. Dogfood? Did he mean I should open a tin of Pal. I certainly don't want to go down that road.
Anyway I bought a bag of dry meaty chunks. I cover a handful with boiling water each morning until it softens and spread it on the grass outside the lounge room windows. The magpies wait for me now and hang around the back door if I'm late. A Rainbow Lorikeets also relishes a bit of dogfood, picking it up in its claw and nibbling it with its beak. This particular lorikeets is right-handed.
We seem to have one regular family group of magpies who call our garden home. There's a pair of adults, with gleaming black and white plumage, three or four of last year's chicks, still with some greyish feathers among the white, and the other day one of the parent birds brought the first of this year's brood to the back door to meet us. It was still not fully grown and its tail feathers were not fully developed, but it already had the appropriate cheeky swagger and cocky walk, albeit a bit clumsy(Please excuse the pretentious use of albeit in a sentence).
He warned about feeding magpies meat. Not enough calcium, he said. I recommend dog food. Dogfood? Did he mean I should open a tin of Pal. I certainly don't want to go down that road.
Anyway I bought a bag of dry meaty chunks. I cover a handful with boiling water each morning until it softens and spread it on the grass outside the lounge room windows. The magpies wait for me now and hang around the back door if I'm late. A Rainbow Lorikeets also relishes a bit of dogfood, picking it up in its claw and nibbling it with its beak. This particular lorikeets is right-handed.
We seem to have one regular family group of magpies who call our garden home. There's a pair of adults, with gleaming black and white plumage, three or four of last year's chicks, still with some greyish feathers among the white, and the other day one of the parent birds brought the first of this year's brood to the back door to meet us. It was still not fully grown and its tail feathers were not fully developed, but it already had the appropriate cheeky swagger and cocky walk, albeit a bit clumsy(Please excuse the pretentious use of albeit in a sentence).
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