The Story of "Bird" the Magpie

Many have asked me the story of “Bird” the magpie. So here it is, about 5 years ago my then 8-year-old daughter brought home a severely injured baby bird from the schoolyard. It was 3:30 pm when she arrived home from school and I was not to get home until at least 6 pm. When I arrived home, the bald, bleeding, shivering little bird looked close to death.

All that know me know that I have a serious soft spot for birds, I felt that I had to do what ever I could to help. I knew that I had to stop the bleeding and get this little guy warmed up but fast. Now many if not all birds have a real problem with bleeding, as I believe they lack the clotting factors in their blood. I got a heating pad and applied a makeshift band aide with a dab of polysporin under it; it seemed to slow the bleeding. My daughter and her friend had been trying to feed it bread and milk. Not the greatest diet for a newborn bird but my daughter was doing what she thought was best.

After stopping the bleeding and getting him/her warmed up, my priority shifted to feeding. I ran down to the local pet store & purchased some rearing food for birds. I fed that little guy every 2 hours or so for three straight days. I fully understand why feeding these little things can be exhausting, I only had one to feed and the food was in the fridge, I did not have to go out and catch it!

His/her health remained iffy for at least a week; I thought it would die at any minute. Nevertheless, he/she was persistent and I figured I would be as persistent with feeding him/her. Then one day he/she opened its eyes. Well if you don’t know anything about imprinting I suggest you read up on it because it is fascinating. Before I get too far in this story I should mention that I wasn’t sure if I was raising a Sparrow or an Eagle because it was small and as bald as Yule Brenner when it first came in our home. So the weeks passed and the feathers came in. I had a hell of a time keeping him from wandering all over the house.

I have the kind of job that takes me all over Western Canada so he came with me everywhere; I just kept him in the car when I went in to see clients. I began to recognize that we were raising a magpie, a member of the Corvid family, relative to the crow. Very mischievous and intelligent! The months passed and “Bird” started to fly in the house, not my wife’s idea of a good time, so to the garage he had to go. I would go in as often as I could which was quite often. Eventually “Bird” began to fly around the neighborhood but he was constantly being watched by other magpies. “Bird” did not think he was a magpie or a bird for that matter so he would not associate with them, part of the imprinting thing.

Whenever I was outside or in the garage he would land on my shoulder and whisper in my ear, yes it was a very gentle whisper as if he was trying to speak to me. One day “Bird” decided to take a long flight in the neighborhood and did not come when I called. I called him “Bird” because I did not think it was fair to consider a wild bird a pet and from day one I thought he was going to die so “Bird” seemed logical. Anyway, there I was running around the neighborhood calling out “Bird, Bird, Bird…” I must have looked certifiable. Time passed and I decided that it was not fair to keep a wild bird in captivity so I called a wildlife rehabilitation centre just north of Calgary and arranged to bring “Bird” in to be re-introduced into the wild. This I was told was going to be challenging since he had imprinted on me.

We lived about an hour from the centre and “Bird” sat on my shoulder the entire trip whispering in my ear as he had done for so many miles before. When we arrived we brought him into a room filled with other wild, they placed him in a cage and they gave me some time to say goodbye. I called 2 days later to see how he was and they said he was progressing well. I called again a week later and they said he was coming by now and then for food. Then a month later, they said they never see him anymore.

As I write this I must admit, I really miss him! People still talk about him to this day.

Animals Warn of Human Health Hazards in New "Canary Database"

Published from, Yale University Office of Public Affairs

"New Haven, Conn. — Yale School of Medicine has launched a state-of-the-art database funded in part by the National Library of Medicine, called the Canary Database, containing scientific evidence about how animal disease events can be an early warning system for emerging human diseases.
There have long been reports of animals succumbing to environmental hazards before humans show signs of illness, according to the project’s leader, Peter Rabinowitz, M.D., associate professor of medicine in The Yale Occupational and Environmental Medicine Program at Yale University School of Medicine.
“This concept of a ‘canary in a coal mine’ suggests that animals may be useful sentinels for human environmental health hazards,” said Rabinowitz. He points to the practice in the United States and Britain where coal miners would bring canaries into coal mines as an early warning signal for carbon monoxide and other poisonous gases. The birds, being more sensitive, would become sick before the miners, who would then have a chance to escape or put on protective respirators.
Rabinowitz said several episodes of illness in animals have been clearly linked to human health threats, including cats and mercury poisoning, and more recently wild bird mortality and West Nile Virus infection.
Rabinowitz said non-human animals could be more sensitive to many of the agents that are potential biological or chemical weapons and could therefore serve as “sentinels” for a terrorist attack. At the same time, the public health system has been slow to use animal sentinel data to detect and reduce human environmental health hazards. Rabinowitz said there is a lack of ongoing scientific communication between animal health and human health professionals about emerging disease threats. This has made it difficult to assemble the evidence about linkages between animal diseases and human health.
To address this need, Rabinowitz and his team developed The Canary Database of Animals as Sentinels of Human Environmental Health Hazards, a web-based collection of animal sentinel studies that have been collected and curated in terms of their relevance to human health. The project represents a collaborative effort between the Yale Occupational and Environmental Medicine Program, the Yale Center for Medical Informatics and the U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center.
The database team is currently developing a series of evidence-based reviews focusing on the use of animal sentinel data in human health decision-making. “To do this,” Rabinowitz said, “we have to apply the principles of evidence-based medicine to a whole new field: the interface of animal and human health.”
Meanwhile, experts at the Yale Center for Medical Informatics are creating state-of-the-art knowledge integration software and information visualization tools allowing users to explore the rich database. Animal health experts at the USGS National Wildlife Health Center, the nation’s primary wildlife disease research facility, provided background on potential disease transmission between humans and wildlife for emerging diseases such as monkey pox, SARS, Avian influenza, West Nile Virus and Chronic Wasting Disease."

American Singer Canaries now available in Western Canada

I have been around canaries for well over a decade and I can say without reservation that the American Singer canary is by far the most stunning vocalist I have ever encountered. I asked a fellow breeder many years ago what was the best singer he had ever heard and without delay he replied, “The American Singer”. I had been breeding all types of canaries at the time but I did not become fully intrigued with them until about 5 years ago. I had been looking for a new project and I had started to read up on the American Singer. I decided to try a pair so I contacted Albert Montanaro in Hamilton, Ont to see if he knew of a breeder in Western Canada. Well as it turns out there are no breeders to speak of west of Toronto, at least not in Canada.

Closer birds are available but getting U.S. birds into Canada can be tremendously difficult. It was not my intention to breed American Singers but I found it a shame that they were not readily available to other Western Canadians so I went to Toronto and picked up several breeding pairs from Marcel Ferrazzi. I must comment on the breeders that have assisted me thus far; Marie Miley-Russell, Albert Montanaro & Marcel Ferrazzi have been excellent resources for any queries. I have a link to Marie’s page on this blog; I suggest you check it out. It is full of great information.





I have a spare bed in my bird room, which is neatly decorated, my wife often finds me in there sound asleep. Their song is quite soothing, the volume is perfect, I stroll in there to check on them and find myself waking up several hours later, it’s as though someone spiked my tea.

I am what one might call an extreme hobbyist, I fly, ham (amateur) radio, mechanics…but the American Singer Canary is by far the most relaxing hobby of them all.