Sweetie Pie

My business partner arrives back from a meeting with a large box and announces that it is a pet for his kids and I have to deliver it because he is on his way out of town. We open the box and it contains a very hungry fledgling magpie. It had followed him around the parking lot and seemed pretty tame, so he brought it with him. "He followed me home, mummy, can we keep him...?"

We only had a bit of bread in the office, which didn't do much to appease the birds hunger. So I took it home to John's family who had been forewarned that it was on its way. On the way I picked up a selection of meat and other delectables. Birds here tend to be carnivores.

Anyway, we got it home and the kids were delighted. The bird even more so, it ate about half a pound of leftover KFC, ham, catfood and other goodies. However it had no idea about how to feed itself: you could put food in front of it and it would be ignored completely. It was very friendly and happy to sit on your arm or shoulder, so we e think it was probably a tame animal, raised from a chick that escaped from somewhere once it learned to fly.

We didn't have a proper cage, but there was a cat transporting box that looked like it would do the job. However the bird complained very vociferously when confined to the box. We let it out and it happily flew up and perched on the curtain rail.

Unfortunately the rail was too close to the wall for it to sit facing outwards, so it had to make do with facing the wall, like a child being punished. After a bit of stretching and preening, it perched on one leg, put its head under its wing and went to sleep.

So we hope that it will learn the basics of fending for itself and fly away soon. We will need to start it on grubs and worms and beetles pretty quickly: feeding them human food is not a good idea.