NOVEMBER is the month when many fledgling magpies come to grief, often with serious leg and spinal injuries after falling from their nests.
However, a group of nimble-fingered South Australian women have a unique way to help these injured youngsters while putting their sewing skills to work.
The four members of the Sew What for Wildlife group at the McCormick Centre for the Environment in Renmark make slings for injured birds that support the bird’s weight while still allowing the creature to pop its head under its wing, making it easy to carry to the vet for treatment.
The slings are the brainchild of confirmed maggie lover Alex Randell, arts and environment officer with Country Arts SA and Australian Landscape.
Alex designed a sling for Iddy, the first magpie she took care of. As a chick Iddy was found by a family but suffered a broken spine when he was hit by a broom while perching on a shed rafter.
Alex offered to look after him and found him in a cage in a paddock under the blazing sun unable to reach food or water.
“I thought he would die on the way home but he didn’t and I made him a sling because he couldn’t stand or walk.”
Iddy is a 20-year-old now but Alex never forgot her magpie sling – so when the local craft group at the centre asked for suggestions for something to make, Alex first suggested cockie sweaters for birds with beak-and-feather disease and then magpie slings.
Problem was, the pattern had been lost over the years but when Alex donated a sewing machine to the group there tucked in a draw was the pattern.
Recently Alex was looking at images of magpies and came across one that led her to a collection of photographs by Cameron Bloom, whose son Noah found a chick that had been blown out of its nest 20 metres up a Norfolk Island pine.
What followed was a story of courage and healing. Cameron’s wife Sam had broken her spine in an accident and was in a wheel-chair. When Penguin the magpie joined the family he became Sam’s soulmate and brought untold happiness to the family.
The resulting book, Penguin Bloom, by Trevor Bradley Grieve, is a biography/memoir featuring the incredible photos of Penguin and her humans taken by Cameron.
The book was published in Australia in April and is soon due for international release.
The McCormick Centre in Ral Ral Ave is featuring a display of the stunning photos along with an exhibition of artistically decorated maggie slings until November 30.
- For information on Penguin the magpie and the Bloom family, www.penguinthemagpie.com
