human-bird friendships

Easter With The Birds

By Gitie

By Leah Lemieux

Over the long Easter weekend, I decided to visit my wild bird friends by the lake in Albert Park. To celebrate, I brought some tasty raw nuts for my friends and something special.

The family of magpies, attended by the usual pair of magpie larks and noisy miners greeted me and enthusiastically accepted the nuts and morning greetings I offered. After the magpies had their fill, my two favourite ravens came over to see me. They are both very large for little ravens and were the first birds to accept my overtures at friendship, so they always hold a very special place in my heart. They are very beautiful and I always tell them so and admire their grace, humour and beauty.

Because it was Easter, I brought them a very special treat--a hard boiled egg. I rolled it over to the male raven (who I affectionately think of as Karasu, which is Japanese for crow). Now, I know, in the bird world, no one ever hands over an egg--rather they are guarded carefully. So Karasu looked like he couldn't believe his eyes. Other members of the flock (around 15 or so of different ages) looked on with interest. I insisted this gift was for him and his mate to have. Finally, he stepped forward, keeping an eye fixed on me and tested the egg's weight and consistency with his bill. I wondered if he would spirit it away to cashe some place and eat it all himself, or share with his mate.

Instead, he did something amazing.

Taking the egg in his bill, he leapt into the air, stroking powerfully up to about 20 feet up and then he threw the egg down on the turf. The egg exploded into many pieces and then the whole flock of ravens settled down happily to the Easter feast--it was fantastic! It was lovely to see that enjoying the gift I brought them was all about sharing the special treat with the group.

read more »

More on:

Magpie Blessings

By Gitie

by Veronica Mather

One legged Australian magpie

For several weeks I watched out of the kitchen window as a magpie, now known as Maggie rested in our backyard. From a distance I could see that he had an injured leg, but whenever I attempted to get a closer look he would fly away. read more »

More on:

Crow and I

By Gitie

By Belinda Elbourn read more »

A couple of years passed and we had moved to another farm, when Darren came home with a baby crow that he had found on the road.

I named him “Crow” this crow was even nosier than Camry (Darren said this one must be a girl).

Crow lived in our sun room, Crow was very smart she new she wasn’t allowed to enter into the kitchen so she would just sit in the doorway and poke her head in to see what we were doing.

More on:

Camry The Crow - A Real Friend

By Gitie

Camry Crow and Darren By Belinda Elbourn

When Darren and I lived just west of Ceduna in South Australia we were very lucky to have shared our lives with 2 very special crows.

The first one to arrive on our door step was Camry, at first Camry was very shy little bird.

But after a day or two soon became a very demanding, cheeky loud little bird.

He spent the first couple of months in our enclosed back veranda.

As we had a huge enclosed fruit tree cadge (Darren and Camry are standing in it in the top photo) we thought it would be best for him to live out there, plenty of room to fly and hide.

Camry soon became very close to Darren, if was to go out to the cadge to feed him he would hide in the orange tree and would not come out.

read more »

Gitie's blog

More on:

How to Speak Magpie - 2

By Ron

Earlier I told you about one of the "phrases" magpies have taught us - the "J phrase", which your friendly magpie will use if (s)he wants you to follow him or her. Vicky Magpie used it to take us to her babies.

But what if your friend wants to point you in a certain direction, but does not want you to actually go there? That's what the "b phrase" is for. Your friend flies towards you, and then flies in a slow circle around and above you, like a letter "b":

read more »

Ron's blog

More on:

Pingu Magpie & Her Human Victoria

By Gitie

One year old Pingu magpie loves her human friend Victoria.

Pingu Magpie love her human Victoria

read more »

Gitie's blog

More on:

Wild Bird Shelly Magpie Walks Into The Cage On Request

By Gitie

Shelly magpie (left with injured wing) and sister Nelly magpie

Juvi magpies - Shelly (left) with sister Nelly at our back door.

Will a wild bird (never handled or hand fed) walk into a cage just because you ask her to?

Juvi magpie Shelly injured herself on the day of the terrible storms resulting in the inland tsunami in Toowoomba and the Lockyer valley. She didn't come down with her family for two days. Due to the heavy rains we couldn't go out into the neighbouring paddocks looking for her either. We thought she may have met a tragic end in the storms, but when the rains stopped briefly on the third day Ron went scouting and found her sitting still in a paddock. Relieved to find her alive, Ron and I would go out to the fields to feed her when we could. A few days later she started to walk but after 3 weeks she still could not fly. She could only climb up tree trunks by hopping along along fallen branches that were still leaning against them as in the picture below.
read more »

Gitie's blog

More on:

How to Speak Magpie - 1

One of the things that has amazed me, and amazed me over and over again, is the intelligence of Australian Magpies. They know how to talk to us, but do we know how to understand what they are saying? I have learned a few "phrases" in magpie language since meeting our Maggie Magpie, and I want to tell you one today that I learned from Maggie's wife Vicky.

I call this the J-phrase. Vicky has used it at least twice with Gitie and me. She might have used it even more than that, but we perhaps didn't notice and Vicky would probably have thought how dense these humans can be at times.

Here it is: Your magpie friend flies towards you, then flies at a very slow speed in a half-circle around you, about three metres away; then she stops: read more »

Add new comment

More on:

Breaking Through The Communication Barrier With Birds

By Gitie

by Francesca Doria (British Columbia)

In spite of all our New Year’s wishes, 2008 hadn’t begun well for my sister and I. Our Mum was bone-marrow transplanted and had been through a hard time, and our cat Émile, that had shared half of our lives with his endless care and reassuring love, was about to die of kidney failure. He had held out to help our mother and the two of us, but now he was wearing out, silently fading away. At the time our mother’s house had been restored, my sister and I had lived in until the inner works had started, so we had to move to our own flat where our mum already dwelt.

While I was staying with our mother and Émile, my sister Paola got back to the big house to tidy up and put in order everything. She immediately called me, informing that there was a jay she was feeding every day on my window sill and a pair of magpies building their nest on the top of our secular magnolia tree.

At first I was thrilled: I had always loved those elegant, intelligent, funny and noisy birds, and that news had surpassed my wish. But being in anxious state of mind, I nearly forgot both magpies and the friendly jay, until I came back home along with our mum, Émile and our other four cats.

The magpies were still at work: the male brought branches and other items, the female observed/examined them carefully, tried them out, sometimes discharged them, and he flew back and forth trying to find the best things to fit.

The jay was still coming, curiously watching the new incomers. There also was a couple of large hooded crows, that were the undisputed owners of that territory, from a bird’s point of view.

We came back home on 4^th March 2008: Émile made a huge effort to visit once again all the rooms of the house; although many things had changed dramatically (my sister’s room had a different entrance, one of the bathrooms had been rebuilt and much more) he recognized his house, blessed it and stood with us quietly and warmly as he had always done.

On 16^th March he was put to sleep: until that day the sky had been beautifully crystalline and blue, the sun had shone bright, the moon at night was big and white in a starry sky, the sea was stunningly navy blue and glittering with sun sparkling, there were breathtaking sunsets. But that day the sky grew dark, and heavy drops of rain began to fall. They got heavier and heavier, like a machine gun; although I was dazed with grief, I couldn’t help thinking of the poor birds outside, especially the pair of magpies, whose nest was under that torrential rain. The female sat on her eggs and never moved; the male brought her food.

read more »

Gitie's blog

More on:

Purple Finches Train Novelist Resa Nelson - Part 2

By Gitie

Resa Nelson Novelsit Resa Nelson continues her story about how the finches in her garden trained her.

The finches have been nesting on my balcony for years, and it's common to get two nests (at different times) in the same flower basket each spring. I'm always fascinated by the behavior of each family because they're so different.

It took the parents a while to train me when to go out and buy a basket (they let me know when they're ready to build a nest), as well as how I've communicated with a mother that I only want to water the plant and not harm the nest or eggs.

purple finch mother feeding babies

She was at first upset until I showed her exactly what I was doing, and then it was like watching a light bulb go off over her head and all I had to do from that point on was show the water bottle to her and she would fly off to let me water and stay calm instead of getting upset.

read more »