Rhonda Bracey: At Random

Who’s there? Magpies, that’s who!

So there I was, sitting at the  breakfast table reading Saturday’s paper at leisure in the quiet of a gorgeous winter’s morning. Sun shining. Birds singing. Husband still asleep.

I hear a knock on glass. I look behind me and to the side of me (I’m surrounded by two large sliding glass doors). No-one there. I get up, go to the hallway and check the front door — no-one there either. I go to the back/laundry door. Nope. No-one there either. But I can still hear knocking. Now that I’m in the passage near the laundry I can tell it’s close. So I walk into my sewing room and lo and behold I find three magpies  pecking away at the window! Cheeky things.

I think they could see their reflections, and were perhaps attacking them. The sewing room window faces north and at this time of the year it’s getting quite a bit of direct sun. There’s sunblock tinting on the window, so giving it a mirror-like finish on the outside. At first I thought they were going for insects, but the tapping of their beaks on the window — not in the nooks and crannies where insects like to hide — makes me think they were reacting to their reflections.

This morning (Sunday), they were back again at the same window!