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If you’re in Wellsford, don’t be alarmed if a small bird with a big beak lands on your shoulder, hops into your car or flies into your home or business – that will just be Minnie the friendly myna, who is fast becoming the town’s unofficial mascot.
The bold young bird has been making friends all over town since her current carers, Leigh Blackler and Stan Witheford, allowed her to fly free from their Rodney street home a few weeks ago. They expected Minnie to take off, keep her distance and do whatever mynas do. However, the youngster had other ideas and instead started hitching rides and hanging out all over town before returning home most evenings.
Favourite haunts include the preschool, farm store and netball courts in Centennial Park Road, the library and laundromat, as well as Port Albert Road and Poland Motors. She also pops into people’s houses and gardens, hitches a ride on walkers’ heads and shoulders, and loves a chat as well.
Minnie’s love of humans stems from her being rescued and hand-reared by Aria Tobin of Warkworth, who works on the farm at Sheepworld with Blackler. They found Minnie in a paddock in early December, just a few days old, with no feathers and eyes still shut. Tobin decided she had to have a go at saving the baby bird, even though she wasn’t sure how.
“I had no experience with birds, it was a complete shot in the dark,” she said.
Minnie was popped into a nest made out of toilet tissue and sat on a heat pad, and fed with cat meat and fruit, all of which she wolfed down, by Tobin and her sister Alix.
“After about four weeks, she started trying to walk and move around, and she’d face plant between her box and the heat pad,” Tobin said.
Once Minnie was old enough and fully mobile, she was taken back to the aviary at Sheepworld, but when she started pecking people, Blackler volunteered to take her home until she was able to fly fully and feed herself.
“I already loved her then, and we have parrots, so said I’d look after her until she could be released.”
Minnie was kept inside for two weeks, before venturing onto the deck, then properly spreading her wings. She quickly started attracting attention as she alighted onto random strangers, and sightings were recorded on local social media pages.
Minnie now has her own Facebook page to keep track of her adventures and, at this stage at least, is still returning home regularly.
“She sometimes stays over with people and she once went missing for five days during a storm, but then just turned up one day,” Blackler said.
“Our biggest fear is that she’ll go into someone’s car and they’ll take off with her.”
Blackler and Witheford are currently looking into identification or tracking devices for Minnie.
Info: Minnie’s Facebook page is at www.facebook.com/wellsford88
