I wondered whether animals have souls last week.

Then this week, I was in the library and found a book called "The Souls of Animals" by Gary Kowalski. It was quite fascinating to read the stories of elephants, dogs, cats, bears, birds and so on. How they mourn when one of their kind (or group) is injured and dies.

There was a story in the book about a tern (a bird) who was hit by a hunter. He was amazed to see a group of terns come to the rescue of their friend. Two terns each took one side of the wing of the injured tern, lifted it up and flew it further to another spot, then another two terns (who had been escorting them) took over the relay and carried the injured tern to a rock further away . This carried on until they reached the sea and the hunter who had tried to follow them, gave up because he was overwhelmed by the bravery and comradeship of the birds he was hunting. The terns would not leave their injured friend to be captured by the hunter!

Some birds (and other animals) mate for life. As far as I could see, with the lorakeets, they seem to be in pairs. Like girl and boy. Occasionally I find a third one joining in. The third one was (I am guessing) would be an older bird. It's sound or chirping was rough and not as high pitched as normal. Maybe it is a sick bird...

In these occasions, the pair or couple would allow the third one to come and feed. Maybe it is like having the mum or dad living with one of the kids. Before they go into a retirement home or something like that.

I don't think birds have retirement homes...

In Australia, trying to sort out a retirement home for your parent can be a stressful exercise.

Australian wild or native birds are beautiful.

I have been making friends with them for over two years now. Here in Sydney Australia, the Rainbow Lorakeets are pretty and colourful birds. They fly (or rather ZOOM like thunderbirds) across the sky. Reminds me of "Thunderbirds"!

Sometimes I wonder where they get so much energy! Not from drinking Red Bull...

Anyway, I think that they are so cute, so I feed them bread or bird seeds. Lately I have switched to mostly bread as the seeds make too much of a mess to clean up.

Other native birds who come to me are the Pied Currawong, the Sulphur crested Cockatoo, pigeons and LGB (Little Grey Birds).

It is important to care for our native birds wherever we happen to live as their habitats are changing so much that it is difficult for them to survive. Pigeons are aggressive and eat their food where they can get it. Other predators eat or kill their eggs or baby birds.