Making Friends and Influencing Humans

Maggie never forgets to impress and delight all his many friends and acquaintances, human or bird. It's his 'thing', the complete network builder. Yesterday, for example, I left for work in the car, and a few hundred yards up the street, the neighbour's dog (not a bad chap, but he chases cars) - you guessed it, chased the car. As it happened, I then remembered something I had to take with me, and stopped the car to check the boot (that's the trunk, for our American friends) to see if I had remembered it. As I got out and walked to the back of the car, I saw the dog standing in the road, and then Maggie made a steep divebombing run upon him and chased him back into his yard. Oh yes, Maggie is smart enough to reason out that I would be impressed that he was scolding the dog for chasing me. And I was! I know lots of people will say it was just coincidence, but when you just keep getting one coincidence after another, that way of writing off the intelligence of our animal companions starts to wear a bit thin.

Half an hour after I arrived at work,  I got a phone call from Gitie. Maggie had swooped down in between her and a snake, and driven the snake away. It was a non-poisonous python, but that's just as dangerous for a little bird. There's no doubt about it, bird friends are really, really good friends! Click here to see the slideshow.