by Elia Anie Kim
BrokeBeak the magpie was easy to recognise at my bird bath because of his appearance. His plumage was striking black-and-white, with the upper beak broken off at the tip. Despite the fact that he had a compromised beak with which to forage with, he appeared to have done pretty well for himself and his family, helping to rear many chicks successfully each year.
Back then, I didn’t know much about Australian magpies, and the strong concept of territory for them. I would often see them foraging on the ground in the grassy yard nearby looking for insects and grubs. Eventually I learned that my terrace was in their territory, and that was why, for the past nine years that I was running the bird bath, the only visiting magpies were BrokeBeak, his mate, and their offspring. For those nine years, my terrace was a part of their routine.
When my husband and I had first opened our avian bath house to the feathered locals in the outskirts of a city near Sydney, my experience with birds was quite limited. In fact, I had no meaningful encounters of birds that I could recall from my childhood in South Korea and New York, as well as from my fully fledged years in Chicago. I do remember seeing a northern cardinal in my backyard once not long before moving to Australia and thinking how extraordinary it was.
In time, the magpie family’s bathing habits became well-established. If they were by themselves, after a short bathing session, sometimes they would hop onto the ledge on the terrace, sprint to the end of the runway with their drippy wings out, fly to a nearby tree and preen, then return to the bird bath for seconds and thirds. I also found out that BrokeBeak’s mate didn’t like to share the bath with her offspring. When the kids had the audacity to stand on the rim of the bird bath while she was bathing, or worse, climb down into the water with her, she would peck at them threateningly and evict them. Apparently, bath time was sacred for some mothers to relax and recharge, whether they were feathered or not. Her kids learned soon enough not to mess with mommy when she was bathing, though each new season’s youngsters had to be taught all over again.
Every year, BrokeBeak and his mate would bring their fledglings to the terrace, and boy, they could be a handful. During one of the more memorable seasons, the passerine pair visited with their new brood twice daily, once in the morning for a quick stop, and again at the end of the day, when they allowed them to run around the place like little Velociraptor children. The curious young bunch would explore the jungle gym that was our terrace, climbing things, hopping onto things, poking at things, and squabbling with each other. And the young magpies, soft brown and gray in plumage instead of the crisp black and white, would make these really adorable high-pitched, squeaky baby noises and adopt a submissive posture by lowering their body, but only when the parents were around.
The parents understood that our terrace was a fun and safe place for their kids to expend their boundless energy, and perhaps even discovered that they slept better that night, or at least bothered the parents less. During the “family hour,” my mate and I avoided going outside. We were not interested in frolicking with them or building greater trust between the two species. We respected their family time, and wanted them to remain wild.
BrokeBeak and his mate brought their offspring year after year, sometimes more regularly than others. In this way, my mate and I watched their kids grow, and I would record snippets of their visits on my video camera, like a family album, or a visual scrapbook of their rich inner lives. Over the years, I would capture many extraordinary behaviors of them and other wild birds, including rainbow lorikeets, sulphur-crested cockatoos, corellas, noisy miners, ravens, and pigeons.
In the winter of 2018, BrokeBeak’s mate passed away. My mate found her body at the base of a little tree in a nearby yard where the family would often forage. He took the body in for casual examination as, by this time, we had both joined a local wildlife rescue group. There were no obvious marks on the body to indicate an animal attack (which did not necessarily rule it out), nor was she emaciated. She had been dead for several days perhaps, her body stiff with rigor mortis.
Not long after, BrokeBeak showed up accompanied by a new magpie. There was much excitement inside the house. We were confused at first, believing the new mate to be an immature offspring from a previous season. But when they visited several times with an actual new fledgling that was noticeably smaller with brown feathers, we concluded that the third magpie was indeed an adult female—BrokeBeak had found a new mate! She had a strange mark on her beak which I would use to identify her in subsequent visits.
Watching the intimate new family of three getting used to the new bird bath routines was a little surreal. I wondered about ‘Mrs. BrokeBeak’, and what her life was like before being wooed by a magpie with a broken beak and accompanying him to his territory. Everything must have been novel to her. Was she filled with excited anticipation as she explored the expanse of his territory, and went through the unfamiliar routines with her new partner? What did she feel when she visited my terrace and saw the bird baths for the very first time?
Perhaps, she was young and inexperienced. Is that why there was only one fledgling with them? Or was there another reason? I vaguely recalled reading something about an insect shortage that year. Did the other chicks in the brood not survive for lack of food? And what about BrokeBeak’s previous mate? How did she meet her end?
From the beginning, the way we regarded BrokeBeak’s new family was different, more affectionate. There was something special about this family. Perhaps it was the tragic loss of BrokeBeak’s faithful mate. Or maybe it was that they only had one chick that season, unlike in the previous years. Or that the young bird always appeared small and more demure, perhaps owing to a lack of rowdy siblings to squabble with. I saw the juvenile hop down to get in the same round bath with Mrs. BrokeBeak without being pecked away by the mother, as BrokeBeak’s previous mate would have done. In fact, it was the brazen kid that would yell at her for trying to get in the bath with it. Perhaps, that was the reason. Whatever it was, for me, there was a tender, almost fragile sense of intimacy and devotion that I had not associated with the family before.
One day, my mate told me that he had seen the magpies playing in the grassy yard across the street, not far from where the original female was found lifeless. My mate had never seen magpies, or any birds for that matter, frolic like that before, whether in documentaries or not.
The fledgling was lying on its back on the grass, with both parents foraging close by. BrokeBeak would walk up to the young bird, play with it, grazing its broken beak over the kid’s feathers on its body, which would cause the passive bird to respond by flailing its big stick legs in the air gleefully, then walk away to continue foraging nearby. His mate would then take her turn, ambling towards the youth and romping with it similarly, before sauntering off. BrokeBeak would then return to the supine minor and interact with it some more. The spoiled kid would remain on its back the entire time, waiting for one or the other parent to engage with it playfully.
On hearing about this new behavior with the magpie family, I became much envious of my mate for having witnessed it without me. He told me that he had tried to record a bit of the interaction on video, but added that the birds were far away, and the footage shaky. I visualized the blissful family revelry in my mind, then forgot all about the recording.
It was more than a month later when I came across the footage, as I tended to download video files from my camcorder in batches, and my recording activity of the birds had reduced significantly by then. As I watched the shaky footage of the magpie family on the grass, my heart melted into a soft heap.
The fledgling was lying on its back with both BrokeBeak and his mate on either side of it. The adults were lying on their sides and playing with the smaller bird between them with their feet, which sent the young magpie’s feet flailing up in the air joyfully in response. The only-child was being pampered with their undivided affection. Did BrokeBeak always play this way with his previous offspring, or was it different because there was only one in the clutch that season? Perhaps it was the mother. Maybe she was new and more willing to engage tenderly with her offspring, unlike his previous partner who would scold her kids for getting in the way of a good bath.
I had already known that avian parents were capable of devotion, expending great effort feeding their young and trying to keep them safe, as well as preening them lovingly. What I didn’t know, until I watched the video, was that they were also capable of playing with their young in a doting, childish play.
Since the extraordinary incident on the grass, the happy new family appeared to have made most of the avian bath house. I was especially fond of those big family pool days they would have on the terrace the first year, with the mother and their new fledgling playing a game of musical baths, running or hopping around and splashing up a storm.
For weeks after, I would find myself recalling the footage of the family playing on the grass with nostalgic fondness. Surely the handheld video taken by my mate did not compare at all to the ones I had taken on our terrace. It was shaky and the subjects too far away and yet, strangely, it was the one I came to cherish the most. There was an elusive, ephemeral quality to it, like all precious memories from the past. After all, I was a witness to theirs in a way, and my bird bath was part of their life story. But there was something else. For some unknown reason, it had moved me deeply with an inexplicable sense of longing and solemn tenderness, which I could not define at first. Then it came to me that, perhaps, it was my yearning for the parental affection that I had lacked in my own childhood.
Category: Featured, Nonfiction