The birdman of Glanmire: The bird who trained a human to feed it.

Cork boy 55

Evening Echo wrote: »

THE clientele of a fruit-and-veg store in Glanmire have been left all-a-flutter by a charming jackdaw that they now know simply as John.
At first they were shocked to see the bird fly into the Super Pack shop in Crestfield Shopping Centre and land on the cash-till. Locals were even more stunned when the jackdaw — the second smallest in the crow family — answered to the call of store owner Michael Healy, before crawling up his arm and accepting a grape while perched on his shoulder.
Now he is part of the community with shoppers quizzing Michael on the well-being of the bird. This reporter was amazed by the sight of the remarkable bird in action.
“Well, John, you are late today?” said

More here

:pac:

Any one got any tame or semi-tame wild bird stories.
Any Jackdaw stories

Birdnuts

I'd love a pet Jackdaw - smart as any parrot apparently:D:cool:

Aerohead

When I was young many moons ago in the West I trapped a young Jackdaw, my dad clipped his wings and I kept and fed him he was very tame, as his feathers grew he used to come out on the street with me and fly after me when I was on my bike, he never left and stayed with us until he died. He would go off during the day at times but always came back in the evening.

They are a beautiful good looking bird and extremley intelligent

Kess73

Have a gang of regulars that all hand feed and/or land on various parts of me or who knock on a window or come in a window to be fed. Have three regular robins (one pair and one lone male), a number of regular Great tits (one being a semi rescued fledgling who has since adopted me since I helped him out a couple of summers back, a regular and quite old blue tit who seems to break in a new mate every year or so and gets them in on the act, two regular blackbirds, a female black cap, two dunnocks, plus a wren.

My less regular hand feeders include starling, housesparrows, redpoll (they will mob you if they are used to you and you have loose nyger in your hand lol), a jackdaw and a magpie that surfaces every now and then.


Some of my past and current regulars. Have put these up before but I love looking at them so











Shadow the blue tit is one of the old men of my regulars as he first became a regular in the summer of 2005 and he was an adult bird at that stage so he is at least six this summer. He has a very distinctive scar on his right flank where his feathers have never regrown, and thinks nothing of bullying me non stop until he gets a waxworm. He will sit on my hand, shoulder, head etc until he gets his way and in the colder winters he has a habit of staying in the hand for the duration of his dining experience. He is tied in the position of longest regular with Blackie Yellowbeak the blackbird.




Blackie Yellowbeak









The last pic is Ollie. He was a fledgling who had the bad luck of losing both parent birds just after he left the nest. I went through a few weeks of hiding little pockets of mealworm (plus captured insects) in parts of the garden where he foraged, and now a couple of years later he is still a regular in the garden and he fathered a fine brood last summer. He is the bird that taps on the window when he wants something extra.

whyulittle

Great stuff Kess.

Aerohead

Great pictures kess you are a very lucky man to have so many tame birds coming to visit, well done.

tricky D

No ducks knocking on the door Kess. I am disappoint;)