Australian magpies

 by Veronica Mather

 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.

by Shaz Close 

 Gypsy magpie was found on the ground by a a livestock man. Cats had tried getting her, but he didn’t want to keep her so Shaz and Damon (pic above) applied for a rescue permit to keep her.

Gypsy soon grew into a an extremely playful bird, who is as comfortable inside as she is outside.

 Donny Magpie, our nine month old juvi wild magpie who lives around our yard got himself tied up in knots. We saw him flying about with this huge spaghetti mess dangling from his leg.

As you can see from the pictures above and below, his back claw is bent forward and caught in the string as well making it really painful and uncomfortable.

One year old Pingu magpie loves her human friend Victoria.

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.