Timone as a young chick

Matthew in South Australia has kindly sent us some photos of his beautiful young magpie Timone. Here is Timone's story as told by Matthew:

Last year my son found a featherless hatchling on the footpath and brought it home. We kept the bird in a shoe box with a bottle filled with hot water wrapped in a teatowel for warmth, my wife got up every four hours to feed the chick with pal puppy food and minced up meal worms. As the weeks grew, so did the chick. It was apparent that it was an Australian white backed magpie and we bought the right food for his health and well being. I do know that feeding magpies mince meet is not good for them as I have read so many people rearing these chicks with such food leads to the bird's death as preservatives in mince depletes the bone structure resulting in bone collapse. Timone, as we named him, is now 13 months old he lives and dines with us (lol).

Timone has an aviary outside as well and has a few friends come visit. We know that rearing a wild bird from a hatchling is different from a wild magpie and releasing him would ultimately result in him being killed, either by his own or falcons etc.

As a protected species we applied for a permit to keep him. I suppose we are one of the very few that knows a magpie better than most, he is vey smart - a lot smarter than we first gave him credit for. Timone is still territorial even with us and protects us as we are his family. He lets some people in and is ok, but some people are scared (of course) and he senses that and plays on it by chasing them around the house. I think he thinks it's funny but we are still very careful when people meet him as he could still inflict damage. We have found that magpies have the ability to be as smart as 3 to 4 year old children. I have now been studying magpies since and understand a lot about them from first hand experience, they are very comical as well and Timone always has us laughing.

From morning when he gets up (as he sleeps inside in his cage and is let out to have the run of the house) till time to go to bed at night, he is into everything. He knows when it is bed time and puts up a fight to get him to bed as only my son and I can do so as he bluffs my daughter with beak snaps and screams at her lol. He also has the cats scared but they are always supervised around him but they run too!

We have bought a bird harness for him and he regularly goes outside for walks as I don't believe in clipping a bird's wings as it's his ultimate defense from predators.
 
We love him very much and he comes first. He does go to the vet for checkups and has a clean bill of health,
 
I suppose we are privileged to have such a beautiful bird living with us. I think some people have the wrong idea about them, after all we all look after our young and protect them with anything we can.

Judith lives in Parramatta and is friends with a local magpie family. The family has had a tough time, but Judith helps out. She originally befriended a magpie pair, Heckle and Jeckle, but after having a child Speckle and the next year two more kids, Judith believes a cat killed Heckle and Jeckle. Then Judith met Speckle again. Here's the story from Judith as of last week:

After the disaster of losing my Magpie family, I felt bereft of their company.  I was walking in a nearby park, when I espied a magpie and I called to it. She responded immediately and I spoke to her as I had to the others. I walked home and then found to my surprise the same Magpie sitting on my back verandah - I concluded it must be the adult "Speckle'. She would come each morning and evening at the same time. Then one day she brought a handsome long legged very scared male magpie. He too was young and they bonded beautifully - both coming each day - sometimes wandering into the house if I wasn't quick enough to close the fly screen.  In fact one day in particular I turned from the 'frig to find the male Maggie sitting on my sink!

Now, they went through their nesting period and I have fed them on fresh mince each day and evening. I concluded that they had multiple chicks because they were flying out all the time foraging in my garden and hoping I would feed them at all times. This I resisted as I felt they should try for natural food too. I noticed that after laying her eggs, Speckle seemed rather disorientated and often displaying anger towards her mate.  Since about a week ago, I have seen no sign of Speckle.  Father bird has been coming and taking the food and flying back for more - often crying a 'caw' sound for his mate - still no Speckle.  I now presume she has died as no mother Maggie would do this and leave her chicks. Today Father bird has been flying in and out grabbing the food and flying out to the trees nearby. He has two chicks flying! I am worried that he can't look after both of them on his own as he seems to be only feeding one of the chicks.

But there were further developments, and, it seems, three chicks, as Judith has explained:

Of the three little magpies, only one follows the father around my garden squawking incessantly for food - the others stay up in the gum tree whilst in my yard. Somehow this little female even flies onto my Vergola roofed verandah. I have it open so the sun can get in and this little maggie seems to know that I am a major source of food for father magpie. It is often on the ground now fossicking in the garden on its own. I laughed aloud at  its antics a couple of days ago - Father maggie comes into my hobby shed just to reassure himself that I know he's there, the little one thinking he was on to another food source, flew straight into the window of the shed only to find it was closed. It dropped into the garden and flapped about with father maggie looking on anxiously. It emerged covered in webs and flew drunkenly up into the tree.

As I hadn't seen much interaction with the rest of his brood, I began to think Father Maggie had forgotten the other two or that disaster had befallen them, but no, two little ones flew down onto my clothes line only yesterday joined by an adult female Maggie. At first I thought I was wrong and that it was Father Maggie, but this beautiful fat sleek female had come to see how things were faring. She flew onto my verandah and took some meat but didn't feed the youngsters, in fact she just flew off and sat nearby, whilst Father Maggie continued his feeding of the babies. About an hour later both of the adults came to my verandah for handouts and they seemed quite amicable towards each other and I was happy that this had occurred, especially to help him with his large family. However, that was the last I saw of her, for the rest of the day only Father Maggie continued to feed his young - maybe it was all too much for her.

[Perhaps] the little female maggie following Father magpie, could have hatched earlier than the other two? I say this as she seems to be advanced in all that she is doing compared to the other two.  It's possible that she has traits of her father as he is a very intelligent maggie - never still - I likened him to a race horse - always on the move.  As soon as he hears my sliding door open each morning - he is there waiting for a handout - tap tapping on the window. The mother maggie (Speckle) was such a love, often sitting by me and carolling, looking piercingly into my face and would just sit quietly taking little tit bits from my hand, knowing I would not refuse her - I sure miss her. In honour of Speckle and of her parents, I have christened the little maggies, Heckle, Jeckle and Speckle!