The Magpie who watches

A Magpie has decided that the tree just outside my office window is a pretty good perch. At least a few times a day he will sit on the branch outside my office window and survey his grassy domain for potential food.
Usually first thing in the morning he will hop along the grass, picking up bugs but then he will usually proceed to the branch just outside my window, clean his beak (an action that is very remeniscient of sharpening a knife when I think about it) and then stare at me. I can't over-emphasise how disconcerting it is to be working away at my computer only to look up and see a 30cm bird staring right back at you!

Over the past few days he has taken to talking at me in the warbling song, typical of a magpie. It often looks like he is trying to tell me a story and he often gets pretty animated but whatever information he was passing along the other day, it seems it was highly confidential and a serious breach of magpie protocols - another magpie suddenly came swooping down from a tree across the road and my magpie friend was knocked off his perch and sent to the ground in a dramatic fashion with feathers flying in all directions! The Noisy Miner birds from the tree next door were very quick to jump in and restore the peace "We'll have none of that around here, thank you very much!" and after some intense swooping from the miners, the magpies quickly flew away to resolve their differences elsewhere.

Whatever the breach of protocol was, and whatever the repercussions, I'm pleased to report that my magpie friend has been released and has returned to his favourite perch just outside my office window. However, as the photo shows, the noisy miners (or should they be nosey miners?) are always around to make sure things don't escalate too far.