baby bird rescue

by Annette Butterss

We moved from the city to a property on the Bellarine Peninsula, Victoria that combined plant nursery and display gardens along with natural bushland. Throughout the 12 (drought stricken) years we lived there we developed a keen interest in our resident birds and forged wonderful relationships with many of them – especially Magpies, ‘Esmerelda’, ‘Whiteback’ and their successive broods.

Our house had many floor to ceiling windows and a large deck overlooking gardens, bush and a dam – an idyllic spot to relax and observe wildlife interaction, behaviour and events as they unfolded.

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.

 Nom is a one year old pied-butcherbird and a much loved friend of readess Jan & Victoria Anderson (remember the gorgeous picture of Pingu magpie with Vic). 

Nom and older brother Om were regular visitors to Jan's home along with their siblings and parents (see picture below).

Bird territorial rules are very complex. When another pied-butcherbird family moved into the area they felt Jan's yard fell within their boundaries and began to chase Om, Nom and family away much to Jan and Vic's dismay.

Around the same time Nom began to show symptoms of conjunctivitis. (Regular readers may remember our pied-butcherbird Butchie getting this terrible condition which often inflicts pied-butcherbirds and which can end in a cruel death for the bird.)  

Belinda rescued this gorgeous white-backed baby magpie. White-backed magpies are found mostly in Western Australia and South Australia.  Here along the Eastern side of Australia, we only get black-backed magpies.  Occasionally a white backed magpie from South Australia migrates to our region, like Bertie and his sister.