Ron's blog

The last three days we haven't seen Georgie, Vicky and Maggie's youngest and, for Maggie, his last child. Georgie would be about eight (months) now, and she has been missing once or twice before, so even though we are worried, this is normal behaviour for a magpie youngster.

Vicky Magpie and the family have stayed together since Maggie's passing, and they are doing well in getting their act together for the new season.

Vicky has changed her appearance quite dramatically. It almost gives the appearance that she has tried to get rid of her 'middle-age spread' and put on an attractive show - presumably in case there are any eligible males out there that she might take a fancy to. Mindy and Monty have become very beautiful adults, and young Georgie is doing fine.

Since our Maggie died, we have been very concerned that his family might be driven from their territory. One keeps on hearing stories about that from all over. But nothing of the sort has happened. In fact, there has been one development that has astounded me.

Suddenly we only seem to have one crow living in our vicinity. Until December we had something like 20 or 30.

We have had many, many crows for many, many years - as long as we have known our darling Maggie, in fact. Yet now, just as Maggie became ill, the crows have all departed for other pastures, at least for now.

Our pied butcherbirds Freddy and Terry had a baby (Jerry) this season. He's a few months old now, but three days ago he disappeared. For such a young bird, the first concern when that happens is: has something bad happened to Jerry?

So soon after our beautiful Maggie's passing, we were naturally very worried and sad that Jerry had vanished. But today, three days after he vanished, there he was with mum and dad on the washing line in the back yard. So where was he?