Understanding humans

Since meeting Maggie I have never ceased to be amazed by how well the birds understand each other from different species, and how that understanding even extends to humans. We learned early on that they understood the concept of names. In some of the stories on the site we tell how we asked them to fetch one bird or another, and how they would understand the name we gave each one. Now I have come to the opinion that they can understand more than that. Scientists tell us that their various calls are inbuilt and instinctive. But the magpies, for example, understand an eagle alarm given by a noisy miner. In fact the miners are the watchers and the magpies the policemen: a danger is often spotted first by a miner and then the magpie defends the community from whatever it is.

But an incident happened a few weeks ago that gave me pause to suspect that this is not some unthinking instinct at work. I was outside with our group of miners, butcherbirds, and magpies, when by some chance, I loked up in the sky and happened to be the first to spot an eagle. I called "EAGLE!" and pointed, and to my surprise, most of them looked where I was pointing. Some of them flew off, but Maggie assessed the danger and decided the eagle was too high to be a threat, so although he kept watching, no one from our group tried to fly up and send the eagle off.

Also, no sign of poor Josie baby magpie. We have had to accept that somehow the cold wet unseasonal days must have been too much for her. Billy, who our neighbour said had three or four bubs, seems to have only one now, judging from the baby sounds in the trees, so the weather has proved unexpectedly treacherous this year. But they are all trying again. Vicky is again fetching food and taking it to her nest, so hopefully we will soon get a visit from a new bub soon.

And to follow up from the other day, I have seen Larry or Harry grey butcherbird at least once each day since my dispute on their behalf with the pied butcherbirds. Larry is such a beautiful, happy, loyal friend that I can't describe the joy every time I see him. If you possibly can, make friends with a wild animal and get to know their wonderful qualities - there are no riches that can compare!