Magpies

Recently there was a letter to the paper about a boy who kept a magpie as a pet. This prompted JL to recall his pets whilst living on a Group Settlement farm with his family when they had just migrated to Australia.

In the years 1928 --1934 my sister and I lived as very young children on a

dairy farm on Miamup Rd. just west of Cowaramup. We had a cat and a dog but

also a kangaroo and a magpie as pets for much of that time. Experiments with

an owl and a 28 parrot were not so successful.

Your article about the magpie reminded us of many things about our magpie

which was simply called "bird". It never made a mess in the house and would

often sleep on its back under a sheet. In the morning it would sometimes get

up early and peck your toes if they were poking out the bottom of the bed.

(We slept out on a verandah).

"Bird" was attracted to bright shiny things such as coins and would fly off

with them into large trees not too far away where it would celebrate its

'find' with a song and of course drop the coins or whatever it had stolen.

Our mother used to have quite valuable earrings (keepers) and the magpie

used to travel around on her shoulders and keep tugging away at the earrings

until it finally did get them off. "Bird' would sing while it was doing this.
 It had different songs for different purposes but we could never teach it to talk
 as you could with a parrot.

"Bird" was very friendly with the cat and used to try to ride on the cats

back using its wings to balance. It used to get on quite well with the

kangaroo and used to perch on its head. It never attempted to pick anyone's

eyes. It would not come on to the table when everyone was eating, but would

share some food later, especially meat. Mostly he fed himself around the

garden.

The wild magpies were always trying to get him back but never succeeded.

They would attack him but never come very close to the house.

Neither "Bird" nor the kangaroo liked our chickens or big animals very much.

The kangaroo would sleep on a mat in front of the fire in winter like a dog,

and was very careful around the house, never hopping but pivoting on his

tail. He never stole anything but as a "joey" liked spent tea leaves mixed

with the chickens’ bran  and paspalum seeds.

This is our magpie/kangaroo story.  John and Ann Lewis.

We don't have a photo of the magpie and kangaroo, but the following was taken a few years later when the family had moved to Quairading.  On a very hot day, brother and sister were spraying themselves with a hose pipe!