> We managed to knock the tree over (it was an introduced specie) and
somebody
> dived on the bird, before it could fly up again.
My wife and I raised a young Magpie about thirty years ago.
Its mother was killed by a car in Naremburn. We firstly had to
teach it that it was, in fact, a bird. Lucky, in that respect,
that we had regular afternoon visitations and tuition by
a friendly group of maggies.
Then came time to learn to fly. We gave him regular lessons by exercising
his wings, dropping him a few feet from the ground,
a little higher each time. He gradually got the gist of it.
Come the time for release, we took him up to the Blue Mountains, in our
naivity, thinking he would be on his way.
On his first foray unto the wild blue yonder he flew half way up a large
dead tree, and sat for a while, confused.
A moment later another bird flew to the very top of the tree. Our boy was
terrified, and literally fell out of the tree.
We picked him up and took him home to the safety of our flat in Mosman,
where he felt comfortable once more.
He eventually learned the fine art of flight without the help of computer
flight-simulators and returned, hopefully, to a more normal magpie life.
Cheers,
Peter
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