When I was a kid a lady in our area had a pet magpie.

During the day she put it in a bush inside the front fence. She enclosed the bush with chicken wire for the bird's protection against cats.

The magpie seemed content with its life and was people friendly and always seemed especially happy to have children come up to the bush and pet it.

LOUDmouth,

Fortunately for the future of the human race you just happen to be one of a kind.

Dear Hassie,

Our magnolias are also flowering, as are other trees.
And it's absolutely freezing in Melbourne at the moment.

Hasbeen,

yes, the magpies do forage for vital wild food, but I thought i would given them oats which is much more nutritious.

only occasionally I now give them wholemeal bread, normally stale crusts I would throw out.

Ok, so my 'pets' are brush turkeys, bar-shouldered doves, wonga pigeons and a healthy throng of satin bower birds, plus a few brush-tailed possums and bandicoots - with an occasional visit by baldy pigeons, king parrots, crimson rozellas, eastern rozellas, magpies, crows and currawongs. (Which come for the molasses-barley I've been putting out since the '91/92 drought - only because the brush turkeys are so 'pushy'.)

There used to be a pair of resident wedge-tailed eagles, who raised one youngster about every two years, but their nest-tree fell down and they moved away.

No dog, cat, horse or cattle any more, and no sheep, goats or other non-Aussies - other than some rabbits, rattus norvegicus, mice, and occasional visiting feral dogs.

But, I have some pademelons in the surrounding bush (and used to see quite a lot of red-necked wallaby, which seem to have disappeared for some unknown reason) and see an occasional goanna, diamond python, red-belly or brown, and have seen one bandy-bandy, one ring-tailed possum, one brush-tailed phascogale, a few koalas and one spotted-tailed quoll, plus some pee-wees and hosts of noisy minors and bell-minors and the occasional whip-bird, and have seen a few brown pigeons, bronze-wings and regent bower birds and noisy yellow-tailed black cockatoos and occasional kookaburras, a few grey (white) goshawk, one azure kingfisher on the creek and one passing rainbow bee-eater. Visiting welcome swallows and some painted button-quail stopping to breed on their migration, as well as some occasional rufous fantail and grey fantail and some nesting superb blue-wrens.

Nature sure hosts a true kaleidoscope of wonder, and I have so very much more to see and admire.

Dear Saltpetre,

We have the usual suburban birds of which my husband is
very fond and he does feed them from time to time - mainly
left over bread crusts that he chops up very finely for them.
The bread is mainly rye, black, or sweet loaf. They seem to
like it.

We have a fox who takes short cuts through our property, and
we have had some unusual birds stop and drink from our bird
baths on their way elsewhere.

Your home sounds fascinating. So much wildlife. One of my brothers
lives in Byron Bay and the nature around him is also remarkable.
As is my other brother's property near Port Macquarie.

Ours is more citified unfortunately. But we are surrounded by
parks and the Yarra Valley, and we do have the Dandenong Ranges
nearby. So we are spoilt for choice.