Just how powerful is Israel in It's war with Iran? Dr Eyal Mayroz explains
Independent news and stories connecting you to life in Australia and Hebrew-speaking Australians. Interviews and feature reports in English from SBS News
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ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
Country wildlife carer says Jellybean the magpie saved her life after freak accident
For more than 70 years Sandie Gillard has dedicated most of her free time to caring for wildlife with no expectation of payment or getting anything in return. But when a freak accident saw her fall from a second-storey balcony to the pavement below, a magpie she had previously cared for, named Jellybean, arrived in the nick of time to return the favour. "If Jellybean hadn't woken me up, I probably wouldn't be here," Ms Gillard said. The fall occurred in 2020 when Ms Gillard was living in Esperance, about 700 kilometres from Perth in WA's remote south-east. Ms Gillard has no memory of the fall, but as she lay unconscious on the cement driveway with a cracked skull and her right arm torn from its socket she woke to a sound. "I woke up to this little sound of purring … and something tapping me on the forehead," Ms Gillard said. In the moments before she passed out again Ms Gillard was able to call out to her husband inside the house. Paramedics quickly rushed to the scene and she was flown to Royal Perth Hospital. After surgery the then 68-year-old said she was informed by her doctors that if she had not woken up when she did there was a good chance she would have died. Ms Gillard's early childhood in the 1950s was spent in Papua New Guinea, just outside of Kokopo, where her father Eddy worked as the manager of a copra plantation. It was during these isolated years that Ms Gillard's affinity for animals, and birds in particular, developed as she helped her mother Gloria care for the local wildlife. "It's their [birds'] intelligence, their non-conditional love they give back, and their gratitude for looking after them," she said. While it may sound extraordinary, Ms Gillard did not realise at the time that her experience as a child was not typical. In fact, some of her earliest memories involve some unlikely critters. "When I was a baby in my cot apparently mum used to put the baby sugar gliders, any of the birds, and baby crocodiles … in the cot with me to keep them warm," she said. Singular stories like Ms Gillard's can pose a problem for reporters; how do you check the facts? In this case, we; These formative years instilled a lifelong passion for wildlife care and rehabilitation. Even now, more than 60 years since her family left the jungles of Papua New Guinea to return to Queensland, Ms Gillard still cares for the local wildlife wherever she is. "I don't know who I would have become if I hadn't had contact with wildlife throughout my life," she said. Jellybean came to Ms Gillard as a "branchling" back in 2017 after she had fallen out of her nest and was unable to fly. The two became fast friends and their bond soon extended to the family. "She played with my grandson," Ms Gillard said. "I've got videos of her picking up pencils when he's colouring in and her trying to colour in." Even after she was nursed back to health, Jellybean was never far away, often returning alongside Ms Gillard's other former avian patients. "They would sit on the verandah or whatever and knock on the door until I would come out and say hello," Ms Gillard said. "I feel extremely privileged, a very lucky person to be able to communicate with animals. "With the sick ones, they seem to know very quickly that I'm trying to help them and they will let me." A couple of years after Jellybean saved her life Ms Gillard made the decision to leave Esperance for the South West to be closer to her family. "That was one of the hardest things I think I've ever done," she said. "What am I going to do without all my birds who come back and visit me, particularly Jellybean? "But I knew that I had brought her up to look after herself and be a normal magpie." Now when Ms Gillard thinks of her friend, Jellybean the magpie, it is about how lucky she was to be saved in turn. "It's gotta be the best feeling, I think, ever in the world," she said.
SBS Australia
an hour ago
- SBS Australia
Why is it suddenly feeling too cold in southeastern Australia?
SBS acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country and their connections and continuous care for the skies, lands and waterways throughout Australia.
ABC News
2 hours ago
- ABC News
Whales in the River Derwent off Hobart's northern suburbs.
Humpback whales have been spotted in the River Derwent as far up as Montrose during the annual northern migration. Supplied: Bec Williams
