Chuckie?

We are not sure what to think about our baby pied butcherbird, Chuckie.

When I say baby, of course, he is now six months or so old and not strictly a baby. What we know is that about two weeks ago, Dimpy, the two year old, disappeared for some days, and then, as soon as he reappeared, Chuckie disappeared. Now it might be that Dimpy went and scouted out a 'position' for Chuckie somewhere, and so Chuckie has moved away. But equally, he might have been on the receiving end of some kind of accident. The family don't seem to be able to tell us this time which it is. Encouragingly, no one seemed upset when Chuckie disappeared, and they do get very sad if something bad happens. So we are hoping for the best.

It might seem strange that such a young bird would move away from home, but we know for a fact that Maggie's first-born, Gemmie, did it at about the same age. We know because after Gemmie disappeared, we kept on asking Maggie and Vicky where Gemmie was, and they arranged for Gemmie to call to us from the top of the hill, thus proving to us that she had moved to the other side of the hill. From the earliest ages, maybe three months old, Gemmie had gone travelling for two or three days at a time prior to moving away. For whatever reason, some babies are homebodies and some are rovers. We're hoping Chuckie is a rover.