Here's a bit of folk verse I just found about magpies. The story goes that the number of magpies seen is a predictor of the future:
One for sorrow
Two for mirth
Three for a wedding
Four for a birth
Five for rich
Six for poor
Seven for a witch
I can tell you no more.
His shriek tore the night after he fell out of his nest and one of my cats showed up to investigate. He cried out piteously in that universal language instinctually known to all creatures, and without thinking it through I rushed to his aid, causing the kitty to call down hellfire and eternal vengeance upon me for interfering. Later I wondered why I had done such an impulsive thing; sometimes it seems a greater kindness simply to let nature take its course. But it didn't happen that way. I stuck the bird in a grocery sack, where it was dark and enclosed and I imagined he might feel safer. I fully expected him to die of shock or infection, but he didn't, so... I did what any mother would do: I fed him.
Ignorant of what kind of food he might require, I prepared a concoction of pablum, pureed fruit, and baby food meat. I glopped it on the end of a wooden stick match, which I then jammed down his throat. He asked for more, and he kept not dying. So... I kept feeding him.
Before long, he clearly wanted an upgrade to the accommodations I'd provided. So I placed him in a cardboard box in my bedroom, where the cats (we had two) couldn't get him. It became necessary to drape the entire room with sheets and towels as he gained mobility and range.
Image courtesy of Jacci Howard Bear http://desktoppub.about.com/
This amazing little bird recognized my voice and sounded an obnoxious, raucous alarm at the sound of my approach. I'd go into the bedroom and offer him my hand. Shrieking and scolding the entire time, he'd hop on and peck between my fingers before climbing up my arm, perching on my shoulder long enough to check my ear and nostril for insects, and finally fluttering to the top of my head, where he'd then methodically search my hair for bugs. When he grew a bit, I'd walk out to the back yard with him on top of my head. We'd do a tour of the back yard, with human overturning stones and birdlet hopping down to peck at sowbugs and slugs. Actually, come to think of it, I think he may have left the slugs alone. Anyway, when he was finished, he'd hop back on and we would advance to the next stone. After these little forays, I would stand (alone now) in the shower for a very long time in the hottest, steamiest water my skin could stand, shampooing multiple times and scrubbing hard, since baby birds have some of the same disgusting mannerisms as baby humans; an important difference being that baby birds don't wear diapers. But -- I'm told -- they only do it on the ones they love.
It wasn't long before the little guy began to test his wings. At first he could only flutter. I'd let him perch on my hand and then drop my arm quickly, forcing him to flap his tiny wings. Fortunately, he was a quick study. We had only a couple of practice sessions in the back yard before he flitted unsteadily off on his own. He came back at the end of the day, landing on my head, and I put him into his box for the night. Once he miscalculated when flittering back home. When he attempted to land on the head of a child who was playing in the yard behind ours, I think she and her companions mistook him for a bat. They all started shrieking and waving their arms and scurried off into the house, squealing and traumatized. My frightened and bewildered little friend flew away and didn't return again that night.
Next morning though, I heard him outside my bedroom window in the same tree from which he'd originally dropped into my life, abusing me roundly for having left him outside all night. How could a foster mom mistake that dear, offensive, ear-splitting screech? I went outside with the now-customary matchstick and baby food, and he hopped down onto my head for our morning bug check and breakfast before flying off forever to his new life.
I never saw the little guy again, though a neighbor swore he was certain he'd seen him on the next block. I regretted having raised him to be so fearless of humans, since it couldn't have served him well living on his own.
