Teddy/Tom Return

Teddy and Tommy were one year's kids from our darling Butch and Cas pied butcherbird family. You may remember Butch got sick and we had to take her to the vet for treatment, and after she recovered, B&C left one of their eldest kids, Freddy, in their territory and 'went on a world cruise' - that is, they left the hard work of raising another family to their son Freddy.

Teddy and Tommy were Freddy's siblings, but from the next clutch and therefore younger. They had become adults and left some years ago, until there was an invasion last year by an intruder group, and we were able to identify that the group contained at least one of Teddy or Tommy because they sang a distinctive tune that was made up by them to sound like Gitie's call for them; none of the other butcherbirds have that call.

One of the intruder birds changed sides, became Freddy's mate, and then the rest of the intruder group vanished (that was last year) - until yesterday when the four of them reappeared. Today they have gone again. Our grey butcherbird Larry dosn't like them at all, and his group is singing loudly right now to make sure everyone knows they are the rightful owners of the front paddock.