Featherhood

One Spring morning, a young magpie fell from its nest in a Bermondsey junkyard and landed in Charlie Gilmour’s life. Abandoned by its parents, the black-and-white bird was unable to fly or even feed itself. It found an unlikely new magpie-father in Charlie, an accident-prone human as qualified for the role as a bird for babysitting. Terrified and starving, the magpie screamed for food every 20 minutes. Raw mincemeat. Grubs. Spiders. The bird grew in strength, and by the time it was well enough to spread its wings, an unbreakable bond had been forged across species. The magpie flew away only to return – a feathered new member of the family. Charlie didn’t know it at the time, but birds like this already were part of his family.