- Wildlife carer Sandie Gillard rescued and raised a baby magpie named Jellybean.
- In 2020, Jellybean saved her life by alerting her husband after she fell from a second-storey balcony, suffering severe injuries.
- Though she later had to say goodbye to Jellybean when moving to be near family, she continues caring for wildlife and teaching her grandchildren the same love for animals.
Here Sandie Gillard, 73, Dunsborough, WA tells her own story in her own words.
‘Hello little one,’ I cooed, stuffing the tiny magpie chick down the front of my dressing gown to keep it warm.
It was November 2017 and my friend Roz – also a wildlife carer – had popped around that morning with a box. Inside was a tiny ball of fluff with a few scrappy black and white feathers.
My heart broke hearing how the tiny baby bird was traumatised after she fell from her nest onto the road, narrowly avoiding being crushed by a four-wheel-drive.
‘I brought her straight here,’ Roz said.
She had eight birds in her care and didn’t have space for another.
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‘Everything will be okay,’ I promised the sweet magpie as she snuggled in close. I decided to call her Jellybean, because she was so small!
Living in Esperance, WA at the time, I had been caring for and rehabilitating birds and animals in need since I was young.
I’d grown up in Papua New Guinea where my mother, Gloria, rescued creatures great and small. My father Eddie, did too.
So as a tiny tot I was forever sharing my crib with baby sugar gliders, injured birds – even baby crocodiles that needed warming up!
By the time I was six, my family had moved to Blackall in rural Queensland, and Dad took work on a sheep station.
Mum began to care for kangaroo joeys that had been abandoned. It was my job to make sure they got enough exercise.
‘C’mon, let’s go,’ I’d coax the roos out the door for our daily playtime in the paddock. I’d help Mum bottle-feed them too.
Now, after taking in Jellybean, she was becoming more confident as she warmed up to me and my husband Grant.
For two weeks I nursed Jellybean back to health, feeding her a liquid formula to help her regain strength as she became mobile again.
She slept on the verandah at night in a cage with other rescued magpies. Two months later she was confident enough to fly into the eucalyptus trees nearby.
Jellybean quickly became my shadow, perching on my shoulder when I watched TV, flapping about while I gardened and picking up threads while I sewed.
It was like we could read one another’s minds. Of all the animals I’d looked after over the decades, I formed the deepest bond with Jellybean.
Within three months she was roosting in the top of the tree with her other rescue friends.
At first she’d come inside for most of the day, but by four months old, she’d flit off and explore the neighbourhood, but then she’d come back home by four to roost.
When she bared her belly like a puppy looking for scratches, Grant and I would indulge her, as she wiggled on the couch.
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Time passed, and one day in February 2020, I opened the sliding door to our balcony and stepped outside…
The next thing I knew, I was coming to, sprawled on our cement driveway.
A purring sound roused me from unconsciousness and pain flooded the right side of my body as blood pooled under me.
Oh my God. I must have fallen, I realised, in agony.
Vision blurry, I could feel Jellybean’s beak tap tap tap-ing on my forehead.
As I yelled for Grant, I heard Jellybean let out a large warble, then my world went black again.
Grant was by my side when I woke in hospital.
‘I’m so glad you’re okay, love,’ he said.
I couldn’t remember a thing, but he told me that, in a freak accident, I’d tumbled from our second-storey balcony to the pavement below.
I’d torn my right arm from its socket and cracked my skull on the right side with the force of my impact on the ground.
The doctors couldn’t figure out why I’d fallen.
Jellybean had brought me around long enough to call for Grant, who’d been having a nap on the couch. Without Jellybean sounding the alarm, I could have died.
After being rushed to Royal Perth Hospital, I’d spent 11 days in the ICU.
After surgery to rebuild my arm with metal plates and screws, I spent seven more weeks recovering before I could finally go home. They’d shaved my head and placed a special film on the wound there to help it heal.
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As Grant helped me inside our house and into bed, Jellybean’s joyous chirps filled the house.
Seconds later she was snuggling under my chin.
‘I missed you too!’ I told her.
Jellybean was my lifeline once again when Grant became ill and then passed in September 2020, aged 64, from heart complications.
I was devastated.
In April 2021 I made the hard choice to move from Esperance, a place I loved, to Dunsborough to be closer to my daughter Jade, and her kids, Archer, then three, and baby daughter Rae.
Jellybean couldn’t come with me. By then she’d grown more used to being in the wild and spent less time inside.
‘You’re forever in my heart Jellybean,’ I told her on my last visit, tears streaming down my face.
I sobbed for most of the seven-hour drive.
Sadly, I haven’t been able to return to visit Jellybean, but my previous neighbours give me updates on my little lifesaver.
I’m still taking in wildlife – helping rehabilitate possums now too.
My grandkids Archer, now seven, and Rae, four, love coming over to see what creatures have come home to Nana’s.
Sadly, I’m having more birds come into my care than ever, as their habitat is destroyed.
We are always looking for more wildlife carers.
But until then, I’ll never stop lending a hand to my feathered friends.
