Maggie magpie stops a butcherbird fight

Our butcherbird group (Butch and Cas are still AWOL) now consists of Dimpy, 3y.o., and Kerry (2y.o.) and two new birds. One seems to be from the intruder group who has changed groups, and we are calling him Terry, and one other who knows us so well we think it must be someone we knew years ago. Dimpy's older brothers, Teddy and Tommy, and his still-older brothers, Eddy and Freddy, are out there somewhere, and maybe this is one of them. The trouble is it's extremely hard to tell butcherbirds apart. Magpies are hard enough, but butcherbirds look almost identical to human eyes.

Anyway, Dimpy had been absent a few days. (We wondered whether he had gone to check up on Butch and Cas.) But he returned yesterday with Kerry, and was having some food with Maggie and a few noisy miner friends, when one of the intruders landed. One of our birds, I think Kerry, got into a ring-ding fight with the new bird, both on their sides on the ground claw to claw and beak to beak. "Hey, stop it!" I said. Maggie immediately trotted over and stood at their heads, and then pecked their beaks until they stopped the fight. Then he came over to me and gave me a smug look. I thanked him profusely.

As for Sophie magpie, unfortunately her recovery was not sustained and she is still nearly blind. But she is so scared of being caught that it is impossible to even try to get her in the cage to visit the vet. I am still hoping she can fight off the infection herself if given enough time. Her younger siblings Mindy and Monty lead her to our yard for a feed a few times a day.