The Magpie and the Scarecrow – by Helena Pantsis

Nonfiction

22 Nov

ISLAND | ONLINE ONLY | AUSTRALIAN NATURE WRITING

Part One:

The Magpie and the Scarecrow, or;

Part Two:

Mangia, Mangia, the men call out, throwing bread through the metal fence, its tessellating wire pattern opening onto a park, sod wet and uneven. The factory sits directly beside the park. The men sit in the adjoining alleyway, cigarettes burning holes in their mouths while they tear their lunches apart with ashy hands. Mangia swoops lithely down from the gum. He opens his mouth – his voice threads through the gaps, a loud artillery, fine and fluty. A short, descending call. Mangia, Mangia, the men say in response to his carolling, c’mon magpie, time for lunch.

He takes the offering, beak bobbing up and down as he chatters. He is shining, slick in a spottled-black coat. Mangia’s wings lift the sky, holding the weight of the hefty blue across his back. He watches the round-stomached men through the fence, their high-vis shirts, their fingertips coarse and gritty. They have been here for as long as he can remember. In harmony, they share: Mangia allows them their plot of earth, the men give him human feed in return. Today it is sourdough, gruff in his throat and tearing a knot in his small gut.

you steal like a magpie
(Tishani Doshi, ‘Lament —I’)

The man is precise as a skull. He stands by the lathe. It plunges and resurfaces for hours on end, flicking swarf against the burnt edges of his skin. Remaking what was broken, to keep making; staying long after he’s clocked out. The best part of his days found in disappearing out the back to sneak a smoke. The man unscrews his bottle, wipes his maw, scratches the flat of his wrist with the unshaved scruff around his lips. The water spills from the corners of his mouth onto the concrete floor. Mangia recognises the simple way he puts his tongue to the liquid in the bottle, gulping, spluttering, attempting to find relief in the droplets of water. In Mangia’s own gullet he can almost taste the salt from the man’s filthy sweating.

Mangia is the shape of the night, gaining in the distance.

Mangia bathes in an ice-cream container full of water, dipping his head into the plastic lake and combing his head across his coat. The man placed the tub by the back of the fence long ago, providing Mangia with a place to clean his dusted feathers. The rain doesn’t come often in these parts; the sun bears down, reddening skin and darkening feathers already black as the void. The men’s heavy footsteps echo, bassy against the flinty call of Mangia’s cry.

Part Three:

Magpie’s feet like
laundry strung, a
hard lark

stilts and the devil’s claws.
The magpie laughs, a
murder,

a whistle-beat, a
call like sawdust,

a compass,
scraping the top of
your mind, living
beneath your hat;

artichoke heart
crooning—

still, check its
teeth, bone crown
curling blood.

Think a while,
stay a while,
magpie.

Part Four:

The man is John, my father. He works in a factory, his body waning day by day. He is a mechanical engineer, working in the freezing cold and the high-octane heat, only visiting the outdoors when he stops to smoke. He and his co-worker and friend (also named John) have become companions with a magpie, who John, my father’s Italian colleague, has knighted Mangia. Mangia considers the Italian call to eat to be his name; he responds by closing on the fence, anticipating a treat. The men have grown attached to the bird, and Mangia has grown trusting of them.

With a life expectancy of twenty-five years, magpies promise a long friendship, doubling the lifespan of some dogs, and establishing bonds capable of spanning generations. By introducing these Johns to his fellow birds, Mangia’s tribe, Mangia opens a channel of communication between them.

The magpie is an intelligent creature. They develop societies defined by etiquette and hierarchies, show enjoyment in simple modes of play, adaptability to their everchanging environments, and general curiosity, even with their often unfriendly human, canine and feline neighbours.

I have hand-raised dozens, treated scores of adults and spent time in the field with them observing their daily lives … For one magpie, any quiet moment in the garden turned into vigorous engagement with my shoe-laces, any hanging up of washing might result in a request for a fast turning of the Hill’s Hoist so the magpie could spin around
— Gisela Kaplan, Australian Magpie: Biology and Behaviour of an Unusual Songbird

We are rarely offered positive tales about magpies. Though, even I have experienced their kindness and geniality. Walking my dog down the street, I converse with them, apologising for my dog’s rowdiness and encouraging them to return to their perches, to the footpath, the nature-strip, the side of the road. These birds seem to acknowledge my separation from the dog, our creatureships distinct – they look at me as I talk, walking politely in a circumference beyond my pooch’s range, only returning when his leash no longer extends to their place.

For a story to gain traction, it must be newsworthy, and there is perhaps no more newsworthy a story than an attack from a common native bird.

… the so-called “nature/culture divide” … assumes a clear spatial boundary between humans and wild animals … Animals that transgress this boundary are considered problematic requiring management interventions.
— Van Vuuren, O’Keeffe & Jones, ‘“Vicious, Aggressive Bird Stalks Cyclist”: The Australian Magpie (Cracticus tibicen) in the News’, Animals, 2016

Magpie season, when it arrives, puts the fear of swooping into the mind of every individual inclined to venture outdoors. It’s often the first thing that comes to mind when discussing the birds. In the park opposite my home, there are signs for duck crossings, and for magpies swooping. Two common birds we share our worlds with, treated as friend and enemy. And while the possibility of having to duck is never lost on me, the magpie’s assessment of danger largely determines the outcome. Magpies are far more likely to attack if they’re harassed, if their fledglings are picked up, or if you allow your pet to behave aggressively around them. It’s an act of protection during breeding season.

John and John aren’t afraid of Mangia. There is mutual trust. When magpies live permanently on human-owned properties, they are far less likely to swoop. They can learn, just as we do, who we can rely on for safety. They’ll introduce their offspring to their people, allowing them to exist freely around their human counterparts, approach individuals, roost nearby, and even go so far as to enter their homes.

On one extraordinary occasion, an adult female magpie gingerly entered my house on foot, and hopped over to my desk where I was sitting. She watched me type on the keyboard and even looked at the screen. I had to get up to take a phone call and when I returned, the magpie had taken up a position at my keyboard, pecked the keys gently and then looked at the “results” on screen.
— Gisela Kaplan, Magpies Can Form Friendships With People – Here’s How

The musicality of the magpie should also be appreciated. They can mimic around 35 other native bird species, as well as dogs, horses, and even people, when living close enough to us. They tread the air with dulcet tones – the sculptor Rosalie Gascoigne described these calls as the intermediaries between people and the Australian environment. Even the scientific name of the magpie takes note of its tune – Cracticus tibicen translates to ‘flautist butcherbirds’.

Magpies link us to the natural world. They are subtle reminders of our landscape, even when shut in the domestic, artificial habitats of our homes. Animals of passionate parental love, family, and environmental loyalty – we have much to learn from them,

Part Five:

Part Six:

w o c k , w o c k w o c k – a – w o c k , w o c k , p j u r, w e e r, w e e r

The man throws crumbs of quiche through the fence. Mangia swallows them whole, keeping his stomach well-stocked. He is made of blood, bones, feathers, and workers’ lunches. Give him some of yours too. Look, he loves it! They chuckle, raspy and rough, brushing the crumbs from their clothes. The man throws offcuts of his mortadella sandwich through the fence. Mangia takes the pieces and balances them carefully inside the bush, as he has done time and time before. That’s what he was doing the other day too. Funny little fella, isn’t he? Their laughter is as coarse as their hands. Mangia’s mate will collect the scraps later, swallowing them whole to bring back up for the chicks.

Mangia’s mate caws, staring down at Mangia, whose freedom is her envy at this time. Their nest is full of eggs waiting to shed their delicate, speckled shells. Mangia’s mate has been perched there for some time now, her partner keeping guard by the undefined perimeters of their land. He has chased enough rival birds away and swooped the napes of dogs and other potential enemies.

thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!
(Edgar Allen Poe, ‘The Raven’)

The young birds are leaving the nest slowly. Mangia brings his young down from the tree one by one; he is left with a single remaining chick struggling to make it on her own. She is different from the rest, a result of their steel-infused water, human-designed meals, the pollution emerging hot and mauve from the nearby factory. Mutated by her surroundings, she doesn’t share Mangia’s long beak or Mangia’s mate’s keen eyes. Still, Mangia is prepared to teach her the skills of foraging as he has done with the others. Mangia shows his offspring how the man brings them food. There is less need to eat insects, to scrounge in the dirt, to bend bony beaks in tree and rubbish.

Mangia, Mangia, the men call out. He brings his young forth so that his human companions may celebrate his breeding, to show the men’s offerings can be trusted; like the magpies are Gods and the men are but mortals. The birds approach steadily, each man watching as they near their heavy, leather boots. The chick ambles feebly on the sides of her feet.

A year passed, during which the scarecrow turned philosopher.
And when I passed by him again I saw two crows building a nest
under his hat.
(Kahlil Gibran, ‘The Scarecrow’)

Part Seven:

Part Eight:

The magpies gather, first two and three, then ten, fifteen, the entire murder arriving to witness the death of a fellow magpie – from cars, or stray swarf, or poison left to clear the weeds. Mangia inches forward, bending down to prod at the corpse. It jerks at his touch, rolling back, hollow eyes gaping upwards. She is still, silent, a reminder that the harmony between man and bird is eggshell frail. The other birds follow. The day is bright, but dark somehow. One brother flies off, bringing back a bouquet of gum leaves tethered to a branch, dropping it by the body. A silence consumes them. Watching on, mournful. Mangia pulls back, flies off. Then, one by one, so does his tribe. They take off like the bullets fired in a 21-gun salute. ▼

This work is part of our Australian Nature Writing Project suite.