Of course, that is not me –  “Too in love to eat mince” – I don’t need an excuse not to eat mince. Besides, I had just had a breakfast of egg and bacon (no toast – still dieting!), and mince was not even on the menu. You see my lovely brother, Bill, had gone outside the back door for a smoke when I heard him chuckling.

“Sally, this is so funny, you should come out and see this,” he called.

I ran, coffee cup in my hand, outside to see what was so amusing. Bill gestured towards the tree in his next-door neighbour’s back garden.

“See those two magpies on that bough?”

I nodded.

“Well the larger one is a fake magpie!”

True enough, the real magpie was besotted. He sidled up to his bird of choice, not seeming to mind that she may have been regarded as somewhat “plastic” by other, more discerning magpies. He chatted her up and showed off, trying to get her attention by hopping from one bough to another. He was just like any other boy in love.

Bill’s neighbour, Mary, was in her garden and heard us talking about the magpies.

“Want to see some more?” she asked me, hardly waiting for my reply as she dashed up the steps of her house and disappeared behind the screen door. Moments later her arm appeared – there was something in her hand… The magpies had eyes like hawks (except that they have cute little bushy eye-brows, as I’ve told you before) and several flew onto the porch railings whilst others waited in the wings (so to speak) on the side fence.

Now Mary is well-known in the neighbourhood for her love of magpies – you see she feeds them mince – and that is what enticed them to eat from her hand.

“I feed them raw sausage – cooked is too fatty – or they roll it in the dirt,” said Bill.

“And I feed them bacon fat,” I thought to myself.

Bill and I are of the opinion that magpies should be given a varied diet. But the magpie in the tree was not tempted by any tit-bits; he let the others vie for Mary’s outstretched arm while he stayed in the tree. As I said, he was too in love to eat mince….