It’s early August, and spring is in the air. The weather is chilly but bright and clear. Birds have started collecting twigs and putting their best feather forward. And I’ve been having some interesting encounters with a magpie.

Spring in Australia is the season for magpie attacks, so I was a little wary when an Australian Magpie zoomed past my ear a couple of days ago. I was going down the steps outside the house. The bird decided it needed to be on the narrow patch of earth between the steps and a hibiscus bush, which was more or less where I happened to be too.

The magpie missed me by a very narrow margin, landed on the ground, and eyed me. Then it started trying to pull up one of the long, thin roots of the fishbone ferns that dominate that part of our garden.

Tug, tug, tuuuuug…

Let go in a hurry to avoid falling over when the root refuses to yield.

Try again. Tug, tug, tuuug,…

Almost fall over backwards. Embarrassing.

Try again…

So, being me, I started chatting to the magpie. “That’s not gonna work, mate,” and that kind of thing. It stopped tugging, looked at me, then went back to tugging. So I went closer. No worries, bird kept on tugging. Closer. Still no worries. Eventually I sat down on a step two feet away from the bird. I leaned over and tugged out a root (easy when you’re big and have hands) then held the root out towards the bird. To my surprise, the magpie took it from my hand and flew off with it!

The same bird came back a few hours later and we did the same thing all over again. And again the next day. During our third encounter, the bird accepted two thin roots from me. When I tried to offer a thicker root, the bird rejected it with disdain. Twice. Picky.

I took this video during that third encounter. I was using my phone to make the video, so bear with me when the picture moves away from the bird while I lean in to grab a root!

Yesterday I was hanging up the washing when the magpie appeared. I went down the steps and sat down for our usual chat. The magpie hopped up onto the step I was sitting on, then hopped up all the other steps one by one, just taking in the time of day, giving me the opportunity to follow it. Which of course I did. We hung out while I hung up the washing. Getting the hang of each other. 😀

(What’s that song? Sing a song of sixpence… The maid was in the garden, hanging out the clothes, when down came a blackbird, and pecked off her nose!)