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Fresh back from a Christmas trip to India, we were keen to see how our birds' new offspring had managed to pull through.

There is a beautiful thing about animals that I am sure readers who have the privilege to observe wild animals closely and make friendships with them will have also observed: we give them little things like food, that cost us next to nothing, for a long time they will they have no chance to give anything back; but when they do get that chance, they give everything they have.

When Gitie and I set up WingedHearts.org, we wanted to keep everything positive, and try to work with those of you who also love animals as much as we do, to inspire others who haven't 'got it' yet, with our true stories of bird intelligence, emotion, and love. But an article in Maggie Wright's latest newsletter cannot be ingored, sad and negative though the subject is. (Maggie runs the maggiewright.net "See Animals Through Your Heart" site.) I cannot add anything to her words without losing my cool, so I simply reprint her article below:

Just a quick note to let you know that Vicky definitely has two very big bubs in her nest. Amazingly, her bubs are always very quiet. We don't hear a lot of squarking for food from them, and they always look very contented in the nest. I hope they stay in there a bit longer and get good and strong before they enture out.

At the end of last week I thought Vicky and Sophie both had babies in their nests, because they were both stacking food and flying back. Sadly, suddenly Sophie stopped and became miserable again, so it seems she has lost a second clutch this year. So many birds seem to have had bad luck in the district. It is odd, because the weather is wetter than it has been (it was drought for years until now), and one would think they know how to rear their babies in a wet season with lots of bugs to feed them. But many of our friends have also told us their magpies have lost babies.