I was talking to a mate of mine the other day, and he took me task about columns I write.
He was sick of bird ones, and me having a crack at the Other Half – he wanted something else!
Now, I was going to comply, but as fate would have it, I am back on my usual topics – wife, birds and useless self. So, I say, ‘sorry’ in advance to anyone who agrees with my friend.
I do have a good reason to write this column – well, a few really – that I will share with you later.
Firstly though, I was heading for a lunch at Your Mates the other day, and it was that busy I had to park a good walk away from the beer and burger that I had been thinking about all morning. So, it was with a spring in my step that I was heading up the footpath.
But there on the driveway of a business was a baby magpie, watched by its parents and about a metre away from an idling truck that was about to drive over it. It had clearly been blown out of its nest and mum and dad were watching it with toes crossed that the truck wouldn’t squash it.
I moved it on to the grass but, with food in mind, I didn’t have the time to ring wildlife carers, and it wasn’t going back in the nest unless someone had a cherry picker.
I went in the front door of Sunquest Industries and ask the young man whether he was community minded (I think his name was Roy), and he answered ‘Yes’, so I took him to the bird and left him with it.
On my return from the pub, I thought I would check out how he got on. He had taken it to Nicklin Way Vet, so I went up there to see how it was going and Etsy had it all under control. Well done, Roy!
I got home that night and was just about to take George the dog for a walk when a good neighbour turned up on his pushbike with a cygnet in its basket. The cygnet had been abandoned by the resident swan family.
The bird expert told him to take it to Twinnies Pelican and Sea Bird Rescue in Landsborough, but he informed me he’d had two wines. I’d had one beer four hours previously, so I was the ‘winner’. Off to Twinnies we went – me, neighbour and cygnet.
I wasn’t thrilled, but I have to say I am glad I did as those two girls at Twinnies do an amazing job rescuing wildlife that, in most cases, are facing problems caused by the human race.
They get little or no funding and survive on donations. As a community, we should be supporting them.
Thanks to Roy from Sunquest, Nicklin Way Vet and, most of all, Twinnies.
It really is up to the rest of us to also do some of the heavy lifting.
Ashley Robinson is a columnist with Sunshine Coast News and My Weekly Preview. His views are his own.
