In the Australian state of New South Wales, a surfer cut his surf trip short to save a struggling magpie that had somehow managed to dump itself in the ocean waves several dozen yards from shore.
Watching it all from an observation deck was Amanda Williams, the only reason the still-anonymous surfer’s good deeds are known to the world, because she described this “beautiful” rescue to local news.
Walking along the headland above South Cronulla beach in NSW, Williams noticed there was something struggling in the water. At first she wasn’t sure what it was, but the fear it might have been a human led her to take out her phone’s camera and zoom in.
That’s when she saw that it was a magpie—this small bird was flapping about, getting swooped by seagulls no less, with no ability to save itself.
Williams wanted to help, but there was no one around, and with her 6-month-old infant strapped to her chest, there was nothing she could do.
After 10 minutes, some surfers went out to catch some of the waves, and one of them noticed the magpie was there. Paddling his board under the exhausted bird, he lifted it out of the water. The waves though sent his board bobbing up and down, and eventually the surfer just had to pick the magpie up in his hand.
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“He was just holding this thing like it was a pet bird, it just sat in his hand,” Mrs. Williams said. “It was so beautiful, he could’ve just left it or ignored it but he went and cut his surfing trip short for this poor little magpie. He went out of his way and took it to the vet, it was beautiful.”
She watched, touched, until bird and brawn were out of sight. She then went home and posted the episode to her local Facebook page where it accumulated a big reaction.
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“I have no idea who he is, he just did it on his own. No one was watching, there was no-one on the shore cheering. He just did it for this poor little bird that was drowning in the surf,” she said, adding that she wanted to thank him for “showing me that there are still good people around”.
Williams did manage to contact the veterinary hospital, who said the bird was rapidly improving.
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