Living With Magpies.

As you will have seen from my earlier blogs on Magpies, we have chosen to not only live with magpies, but to encourage them to visit us too. Like many things in life, this may seem like a simple thing to do at the time, but is one with long term repercussions, even if not commitment. As already shared, we started to feed just a couple of magpies and soon had up to 20 squabbling over the food. So far, apart from a mess on one sheet, we have not had too many negatives out of the experience, but not all are so lucky.
My sister, when I asked her of her memories of the Magpies Mum raised or attempted to raise, wrote this: “I think you are correct that they were usually called George. I don't remember how many Mum raised over the years. I do remember at least one dying and Mum was upset as she always tried hard to raise the little ones.
I don't remember how many there were but when our youngest sister was small, I remember one particular George hung around much longer that the norm and came back the following year as Georgina with her own babies.
Thinking about this in later years, she cursed the magpies as they would come onto (the closed in) the veranda looking to steal the cat food and would get trapped in the bathroom and cause havoc and make one hell of a mess, what they didn't knock down they pooped on!”
So, just remember, when you take on an animal, whether a wild one or a pet, (as well as some other projects) it often has long term repercussions. Some, like Georgina coming back with her babies, are nice ones. Others, like stealing the cat food and messing everywhere, not so good.
Well! You have heard my memories of Magpies, what are your memories of wild birds or animals that you would like to share?