19 years ago, when we moved in here, the place had been empty for about 18 months, & the wildlife had taken over.

The first we knew of our magpies was when out 6 year old son came running in, a few weeks later, trying to escape a diving bird. I do suspect he may have done something to cause his own discomfort with this bird.

Now not being one to accept the dictates of authority all that well, I would have eliminated this bird, if necessary, but fortunately it did not prove so.

First my son accepted that there was no problem if he ignored the bird, & then the birds discovered they liked the dry cat food in a bowl, just outside the back door.

As we got to know each other I started cutting some of the dogs meat into Maggy friendly pieces. Then the Butcher birds turned up. They like to take even smaller pieces of meat on the wing, if thrown up for them. Feeding time became a bit of a production at our place.

Add a year or so, & my youngest daughter had the Maggies eating from her hand, & bringing the next generation in for a feed, as soon as they were were flying. Today during nesting season I have Maggies landing at my feet the moment I step out side, demanding something for their chicks.

Enter my daughters cat. I'm minding it for a while. I think it must have attacked the Maggies, as soon as it was allowed out. This was not a good idea for a town cat. It no longer goes out, & even avoids the glass door when the Maggies are out there.

This has not effected our relationship with them, & they are feeding babies right now, so are looking for more handouts than usual. They follow me around the garden, expecting me to supply catapilars off the hibiscus bushes, & citrus trees when I'm there. So if you have a troublesome Maggie, try supplying some suitable food, & you just may become friends.

Hasbeen we have something in common.
A mate on the coast feeds his visitors peanuts.
Watching Maggy's crack them, and demand more is fun.
The PC brigade will warn us not to feed but never know we increase their numbers.
Mine are lessor in numbers, now with kookaburras eat best mince.
But are troubled by pee wees and most of all the flying rats Indian Minor birds.
Worth knowing, this village had ,sadly had, albinos in the flock.
A pure white and others just a lot more pink eyes too.
All trapped and stolen we never found out by who.
We do have a unique native wildlife known to inhabit nearby hills.
The answer may be found there among the tin sheds old cars and rather scattered crops.

Belly our kookaburras are totally aloof. Nothing I offer them tempts them in any way.

They nest in a tree just 30ft from the clothes line, & often sit on it, & watch us.

I did catch them mating this year, in an adjacent tree, about 40ft up. They must have become too excited, as they fell out of it, still locked together.

Luckily it's a bushy tree, as their fall was slowed as they bounced of every branch, on the way down, & finally off a thick passion fruit vine on a 4 ft high trellis.

They were still locked together, & much as I wanted to check them out, I stayed away. 10 minutes later they separated, flew up to a low branch, & sat looking accusingly at each other for some time, before going about their normal day.

There is at least one risk that I am aware of and that is if you mistakenly feed them a deficient diet, it can lead to a heightened risk of the *maggies* getting that awful condition where their beaks become crumbly leading eventually to a situation where they can no longer feed naturally. .. I have seen a lot of it around me regrettably.

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We feed different birds often, but where a local population becomes dependent or simply prefers to hang out and predominately feed and inter-relate with people, it would be better in my view to have some quality web based "best practice" guides to access so we can get it more right.

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I think the TV pollies should do more with their bit of TV space than what they currently do by outreaching with information packet dispersal.

An example that comes to mind which had some good features but wasn't altogether there was one occasion watching *Wayne Swan*

1. He was talking about getting the budget back into black and he had on a great jet black jumper.

2. Health & Safety were involved and he had on a yellow orange safety waste coat.

3. Had a hat on too, but the logo and writing weren't discernible.

4. An "Australia.Gov.AU" overlay on the bottom would have been good, and maybe a tax web site linky for his budget paper or something appropriate for the moment.

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5. For the environment Minister, maybe a "maggie link" pre swooping time etc etc to compliment whatever they happen to be talking about.

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6. If the ALP wishes to reach out to a wider audience, then surely one way is to engage people with quality, stimulating and uplifting information, much of which is good for all of us to be aware of. All they need to do, is bring it all together and link everyone in on screen.

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There are a lot of support mechanisms and guv products and services out there, but too many people are unfortunately unaware or insufficiently aware of them.

Hasbeen I am aware of that soft beak problem.
My mates peanuts stop that.
Bits and pieces fly every ware and are picked up not wasted.
In other times, rabbits about I cut strips small,and Kookas loved it , butcher birds too, different type here.
Now the song of all three is gold.
Feeding birds in suburbia is not bad, natural food needs supplements.
Here my visitors come and go, eat nature food too.
Galahs out the front upside down on the power lines.

We get ground meat for the butcher birds, maggies and kookas. They vary in boldness. Some kookas will perch on our arms, and we can stroke them. Some butchies are also bold. The maggies are the only ones who defecate on the verandah. We also get noisy miners coming for the meat. They will not come close to us but wil dive bomb and harass the other birds. A currawong occasionally intrudes a malign presence.

We put out seed for the seed eaters. We get pale headed rosellas, lorikeets, king parrots, crested pigeons and bush turkeys. Once I took a computer to bed w me before putting out seed. A male king parrot banged on the window w his beak in protest.

Davidf I too get all those.
The meat eaters gather in what I call the front yard, neighbors call it back.
I leave meat on the bone too chicken or small bones cut with a saw.
Back yard fronts main road and is surrounded by bottle bush and other trees parrot family feeds there.
I do not feel guilt.
Some of these birds came back after not being seen for decades to feed on my trees.
Wish the flying rats had not.

Dear Belly,

You win some - lose some. We used to get double barred finches, but they have not been around since we started getting more of the bigger birds.

We have seen sulphur crested and black cockatoos. We have seen nearly 50 species around the house, but most are transient.

My house paddock is 1.5 acres, & heavily planted, so we feed a lot of birds, without effort. Since I decided I was not prepared to use enough poison to beat the fruit fly, the birds have a bonanza.

The lorikeets & the white cockatoos love the apples. They start when they are very small, leaving small cores hanging on the trees. The cockatoos also love the mulberrys, but do knock the trees around.

Just about everything gets into the peaches & apricots, but it is the crows that annoy me. They go for the almost ripe lemons, putting half a dozen holes in each fruit, before deciding it is not to their liking, & moving to the next.

The maggies like the mandarins, but at least they are happy eating them on the ground, after they have knocked one or 2 off the tree. About the only fruit we get is the Brazilian cherry. With the fruit hidden on the trunk of the older branches, deep in the bush, we sometimes find them before the birds.

The blue wrens deserted us after my lady cleared out the asparagus fern they nested in, but are back after we grew some more, & the pee wee, & the willy-wage tail both enjoy fighting the other one in the paddock bashers rear view mirror, but at slightly different times of year.

Right now the silky oaks, [grevillea robusta] & lots of other grevilleas are in rampant flower so lots of various honey eaters, & lorikeets are squabbling around the place.

By leaving some areas of clover & an early spring weed unmown the pigeons are getting a good feed for a while, but the lorikeets do give them a hard time.

About 5% of the trees in the yard are bird plantings of things from the bush, that I have left to grow. If only I could get them to drop their seeds where I wanted trees, the percentage could be a lot higher.

Hasbeen while my fruit fly is not the huge problem yours is I do spray, its my only not organic action.
But the birds own one large plum tree and the other are under screens, given away to village kids and the birds.
Daidf I miss the finches, not here but in a rented home next village I fed them and watched ten turn to 30, neighbor trapped them! two great young girls told me about it on return from north coast fishing, and had set them free by my return.
Bigger birds stop them here but plenty of others pink and Grey Galahs sulper crested black and black with red chest cockatoos visited in session.
PS
A good gardener in my area should help control fruit fly, we are just to chance,slim, of controlling them.

Hasbeen:

...One sad feature of the magpie is how easily they are run-over by cars: Particularly on dusk.
I found that by driving at around 80km per hour gives them nearly 100% chance to clear the road before being hit. But also a short blast of the horn alerts them to the oncoming danger of the vehicle.
Not much chance all will comply to this necessity, but we can all individually play our part in their comfort.
I have also found over time, this is the optimum speed to avoid most collisions with kangaroos. A 400km trip at 80 vs 100 takes a very marginal extra time and is much worth leaving slightly earlier to achieve less slaughter of wild life, not to mention avoiding vehicle damage.

...Below is a great web site on magpies with an extract on their sexual anatomy (or lack of it)!

#Watching the World Wake Up: Magpies Part 1: The Basics#

Extract:

...Male magpies, like most male birds, don’t have penises. Most birds- male and female- have a single anal-genital opening called the cloaca, used for passing waste, ejaculating semen, and laying eggs. Magpies mate by presses cloacas together, which in order to accomplish the male must get his tail under the female’s

Did not know that diver Dan, thanks.
Around here it is ducks that get killed on roads.
Dancing together then diving one on other often in front of cars.
I use horn never got a bird.
But wallaby's and roos in scrub country tend to dash out right in front never nice.
Story in northern river paper this morning.
Keep in touch with my favorite fishing spot,seems a mug deliberately ran over a pair of ducks.
Killing one adult and lots of chicks.
Strange people.

Belly:

...To have a love affair with the wood duck could be fatal. As migratory animals they are a known vector for mosquito born viruses: So too of course are all other migratory animals. But as ducks do, they congregate on farm dams and natural waterways, often too close to domestic dwellings. I encouraged the dogs to eliminate nesting sites on dams close to the house as a precaution against the (slight) possibility of disease transmission. But also, their faeces carry disease, if ingested in any way can cause severe intestinal reactions. These facts don’t excuse cruelty of course. And the last bit of useless information about ducks; in the avian world they are one of the three species of birds with a penile appendage. I personally prefer magpies: “magpies are to humans as ducks are to sheep”!

None around here Diver Dan, again thanks did not know that.
I have for some time feared Indian Minors may carry now or in the future bird induced diseases.
We live on rain water from our tanks here.
Right now waiting for my ladder to be returned [been four months!] so I can drag nests out from roof.
They have removed a skirting board and hope to get them before hatching.

Dear diver dan,

How did you encourage the dogs to destroy duck nests and, I presume, only duck nests?

Thanks to you Hasbeen, and others, who have contributed,
for making this such an interesting thread. I'm learning
quite a bit more about our native birds.

Our home is on a direct straight-line flight path
connecting a number of lakes, waterways, and wetlands.
At the back of our house there has developed a relatively
large cluster of trees. We live in a relatively quiet and
protected suburban court as a result at frequent intervals
we get a variety of birds, such as parrots,
corellas, red-faced black cockatoos, galahs,
lorikeets, crested-pigeons, turtle-doves, small hawks,
tiny-little birds (not sure what they are), and on occasion
to our surprise - pairs of ducks. Not to mention all the
usual variety of suburban birds - such as wattle-birds,
crows, and of course magpies.

At one time we even found a fox sunning itself in our backyard -
against a newly constructed fresh timber fence.
And at night we can hear swarms of bats flying over our house.

David f:

...Ducks have incredible survival skills and offer a huge sporting challenge to a dog which must exercise every hunting instinct to succeed. The brood will be tracked individually until all are captured and killed: Those not presented as an offering at the back door are eaten.

...Duck hunting was great training for the dogs, they have extended the skills into capturing fish in shallow water; I have one dog capable of diving to a limited degree, a skill learned in duck hunting. All very the fascinating “stuff” of nature