Magpies, eagles, pelicans – a parallel world

Magpies were a common sight in my childhood garden hopping round the lawn and were never given a second thought. Only in my twenties did a superstitious friend start to make me wary. One day the unusual sight of a magpie sitting on the back of a sheep (like a tick bird on a rhino) was followed by news of the death of a pet sheep I had hand-reared. Thereafter I became alert to sightings.  Riding exercise on a friend’s horse one morning I caught sight of a magpie sitting on a tree above