Magpie Mayhem

I had my blip all done and dusted by 10 o'clock this morning . I wanted to get it done early because it was going to be hot today, and most of the action takes place when it's cool as you would well know. But the Rower wanted to go to Belair station to take his blip for the day so I put off putting my own up until this afternoon. And am I glad I did!

Anyway we were wandering around up at the station, and I levered a bit of bark off a gum tree to to see what was underneath. And there was this really terrific spider - brilliant camouflage. Boy, was he cross that I had disturbed his postprandial snooze. I cracked off some great shots of him just to start.

Then I looked at a native flower of some sort - all I can tell you is that it was purple, and I spotted the tiniest little white spider you ever would see. Gosh, but she was pretty. I've never seen one like her before. Pure white with an orange flash on her forehead for her eyes. If we hadn't heard what we did, she would have been the choice for sure.

Anyway I was clicking away (as you do), when we heard a baby magpie begging for food - a few seconds later the most almighty ruckus broke out. Dad magpie absolutely lost it - and attacked the baby very viciously. He had it hanging upside down, holding it in his beak by a toe. Baby was screaming his head off, and Dad was shaking him really hard. They were very high up in the gum tree, and I was taking as many shots as I could. This is the best of them - and I'm sorry it's grainy, but I took it with my 100 mm macro lens, so I couldn't get any closer to the action, plus they were in shade which made it harder.

We are fairly sure that the monster actually bit off the baby's toe which enabled him to break free - the mother came down at the rate of knots to see what was going on and to protect her baby from a very annoyed Dad.

The last we saw of them, Mum was still protecting her baby, who was cowering in the crook of a branch.

The moral of this story is - don't mess with Dad when he's in a temper - it will all end in tears.

Best in LARGE