Magpie Baby
From Marjorie Thelen’s daily journal 2022
High Desert in Burns, Oregon
Monday, July 4th 2022,70 degrees
Yesterday about 9:00 AM I was walking under the Russian olive trees on the north side of our house and noticed something black lying on the ground. I investigated and found it was a baby magpie still alive, half feathered out. He must have blown out of the nest about twenty feet above me in the old Russian olive. I felt helpless. I knew he would die if I left him there, but I couldn’t get him back into the nest because it was so high up and difficult to climb the Russian Olive tree with its thin, spare limbs and haphazard branches. A magpie pair had worked on repairing that two story condotel nest for months. It had a front and back door on the first floor, and this little guy must have got shoved out. Already it was hot and dusty in the high desert, and the little guy didn’t have much of a chance in the baking sun.
I fixed him a small cardboard box lined with grass and tied his home to a low hanging tree limb under the high up magpie nest, hoping the parents would notice. He wasn’t responsive. I felt bad knowing there was little I could do. The fall from the nest must have knocked the wind out of him. He needed to recover. I checked on him during the morning. He wasn’t responsive.
I consulted the Internet and Marta, my animal savvy neighbor, as to what to do. I kept checking on him.
When I checked in the early afternoon he started chirring his head off. I mixed up some food for him garnered from three websites: cat food soaked in water, hard-boiled egg, and cooked oats. He ate it up. Marta came over with a big, two foot long rectangular, open wire cage that I lined with newspaper and fresh cut grass. His new home.
He eats and sleeps. I feed him with a blue plastic tweezers. He’s had two moths and four flies plus his special food. He’s eating more. Then he sleeps. Marta and John think he should be covered. So, I put a hand towel over him for the night. He is still alive. I’ll cover him at night because the nights are cool, and he doesn’t have his siblings for warmth. We take one day at a time. This is a very special experience. The flow of life.
July 5, 2022, Tuesday, 80 degrees, partly sunny
Magpie baby made it through the night. Got some bugs for him today to eat plus his special food: softened cat food, hard-boiled egg, and soft oats. He eats and poops well. Likes his blankie which he sits under sometimes. He’s hopping more.
July 6, 2022, Wednesday, 80 degrees, sunny and breezy
Magpie baby still alive and growing. John caught some moths today for him. I added mashed banana to his special food.
July 8, 2022, Friday, 80 degrees, sunny
Magpie baby still alive and growing, feathering out. Going to town today. Marta will come to feed magpie baby.
July 10, 2022, hot, breezy
Feeding magpie baby. His two siblings are roosting outside their nest. They are all feathering out.
July 11, 2022, Monday, 90s, sunny
Magpie baby spent from 8 AM to 4 PM outside on the limb above her cage. Twice I saw her parent visit and sit on the limb beside her. The second time the parent jumped to the ground, pecked around, and fed her. My heart was thrilled. Bubbie fell off the limb twice. So, after 4 PM feeding I put her back in the cage because we’re going to a picnic in town tonight. She did well today and sits on the branches in the cage now. I say she’s a female because she has four fat siblings who are bigger and are brighter black and white than her. They jump around on the branches outside the nest. So today she became female. I call her Bubbie. The Power is working to help her. Thank you.
July 12, 2022, 99 degrees, breezy, hot
Bubbie, the magpie, did well. Didn’t eat much in afternoon maybe ‘cause of the heat. Put her in the safe house (cage) when we went to town. She hopped over on the limb when I couldn’t reach her and got a bite to eat from the blue, plastic tweezer I use. John found her some moths. I got two flies. Her siblings seemed interested in her getting fed. But they haven’t come to investigate. They watch from above.
I wear a floppy straw hat when I go to feed her. Today she was sitting on a limb about the same height as the top of my hat. She decided to jump over on top of my hat and turn around. As luck would have it, I had my iPhone with me and snapped a photo of us, her on top my hat like that’s where she belonged. I will always treasure that photo.
July 14, 2022, my best friend’s birthday, hot, sunny
Baby magpie rejoined the wild today. She flew by herself past the pump house, past the garage and chicken coop. She’s sleeping tonight in the west Russian olive trees on the far side of our fenced property on the west side of our garage where two of her siblings are. One looks like her, so I think she is a female like Bubbie. I fed her the last time about 6 PM. At 8 PM I went out and stopped about mid garage. She was on the ground but made her way up to the limb about midway where another sibling was sitting. Parent magpie visited that one and may have fed Bubbie. So tonight she spends in the trees reunited with her family. I felt so grateful and happy. Bless her, bless her, bless her.
July 15, 2022, Friday, hot sunny, 94 degrees
Bubbie the magpie made it through the night with her five siblings in the west Russian Olive tree that grows along the wood and barb wire fence with a line of other Russian Olives. At 9 AM, noon, and 6 PM I checked on her. She hopped out on a branch to be fed. The other five are in the tree, on the fence, on the ground. Bubbie seems to like being on the ground. I think she’s looking for bugs. She was hungry tonight at 6 PM, not as much the other times. Hopefully, she’s getting something from the parents.
July 17, 2022, Sunday 6 AM, 47 degrees, sunny
Friday evening when I fed Bubbie at 6 PM I teared up. I somehow knew I would be the last time. I told her I loved her and asked blessings upon her life. After I worried I shouldn’t have fed her, that her parents wouldn’t, and that she’d still be dependent on me.
Saturday I avoided going to the western Russian Olive trees. I didn’t want her to see me. Yes, all the magpie family was still there. I could hear them. About 7 PM I took the watering can filled with water to replenish the big bird water saucer on the ground by the picnic table that sits under a Russian Olive. I stopped by the garage because the magpies were on the table and taking a bath in the water pan on the ground. I was thrilled.
I only counted three magpies at first. Two were sitting on the barb wire fence under the Russian Olives. My worry was back that Bubbie wasn’t with them. But then I counted six. I was thrilled and gratified again. I waited until everyone had had a bath then walked with the water can, food container, and red plate to the picnic table. Three magpies were there and looked at me. One came forward with the magpie greeting, a loud squawk. It was Bubbie! She didn’t open her mouth to be fed. She watched me fill the water pan on the table. Then I put on the picnic table the red food plate and placed some of her food on it. She looked but didn’t eat.
I talked to her but didn’t reach out. She watched. Then I left. After the parent came several times to the picnic table and fed Bubbie at least once. She likes bugs better. She took a splashy bath in the water pan on the table as did one of her fat siblings.
I watched sitting in a chair by the cat nip growing along the garage wall well back from the magpie drama. I was petting Midnight, our black long hair cat, as I watched the magpies. She jumped down and went to investigate something on the ground. I did, too. It was a tiny, featherless baby sparrow that had fallen out of the bird house high on the garage wall. It was still alive but felt cool to the touch, so I put it into the hole in the bird house. This time I could reach the nest.
July 17, 2022. Sunday. Hot. Hot. Hot. 98 degrees.
July 26, 2022, Hit 102 degrees. Heat Advisory
Early morning I’m out filling bird water pans by the picnic table under the elm tree. No magpies this morning or evening. The family of California quail are grateful for these offerings.
July 27, 2022 8:30 AM Heat advisory.
No magpies this morning, last evening or yesterday morning.
July 28
No magpies
July 31
Water to bird pans morning and evening.
The magpies are gone. I think they come to nest in the Russian Olives in the early spring and then are gone by summer. I wonder where they go. Maybe to the basalt cliffs to the north of our place, since it’s cooler there. I miss them. They will always be my favorite bird.
I have a photo of Bubbie sitting on my garden hat on my head. I keep it on my nightstand. She hopped up on it one day when I was feeding her, and she was on the limb across from me. We were pals. We will be forever friends. What a special experience to share one’s life with a baby magpie.
September 2022
We pack the truck to go cross country to Pennsylvania for a long sojourn. I’m walking around in the yard. A lone magpie flies to our Russian Olives, calling. I watch. It’s unusual for a magpie to be here this late in the year. She flies back and forth in the Russian Olives, calling. This continues for several hours. Then she’s gone. I like to think it was Bubbie, come to say goodbye.