Slaves of the Birds

Hans keeps feeding the birds. I make egg and cheese pancakes in the microwave, then dice them up fine so he can throw pieces at magpies and butcherbirds every time they sing, scream or hover in the air to attract our attention. I stopped making the stuff in the hope he’d give up, but then he simply tore hunks out of cheese and that’s too strong for birds. The upshot of this is that instead of one fledgling or none surviving, the magpies have three!!! And the butcherbirds have two!! Five more mouths to feed. Add to that a flock of rainbow lorikeets; a bevy of King parrots that swoop over us as we walk, wings nearly clipping our ears as they sweetly demand the most expensive seeds on the planet – sunflower seeds that they prefer to eat very slowly out of our hands because the lorikeets then don’t chase them away – and cupfuls of wheat, barley, oats and other grains spread all over the drive for scores of different sorts of pigeons, blue parrots, a pair of wild ducks and...
As well, we have to build cages over fig trees or the red-eyed fig birds get all of them – as well as the guavas, Brazilian cherries and other fruits. Then, every peach has to be bagged to keep off the fruit bats and all other birds who fancy a sweet drink, and it’s all because he thinks these rats with wings can't survive unless he helps them. I tell you, they’re cleverer than us... we can't train them but they sure as hell have trained us to do their bidding.
Today at breakfast the three young magpies were playing at mothers and fathers – I kid you not. They were rolling around on the lawn pretending to fight and found a pile of dry grass which they scratched together then took turns to pretend to be still in the nest. One would squawk and tremble its wings and the others would pretend to look for food then go and place it in his/her open beak, then it would be the other one’s turn.
Anyone who thinks humans are different from animals and birds, hasn’t observed animals and birds in their natural state.