Preparing for Adulthood

Birds have become the lens through which I experience the natural world. Both the Australian magpie and the rainbow lorikeet are regular visitors to our backyard, and they have become symbols of my emotions and my social and mental response to all the environment has been throwing at us recently in the form of unprecedented droughts, fires and floods. In ‘Preparing for Adulthood” I witnessed the training of a young magpie by her parent, through a pecking game. Because of the drought, the youngster had no siblings to ‘play-fight’ with, and so was receiving a very focused education from her parent.