'Beautiful' moment surfer rescues magpie from drowning at Sydney beach
The young surfer has been praised as a 'legend' by his local community.
While out for her regular afternoon beachside stroll with her baby, Amanda Williams noticed something struggling in the water, and for a second wondered if it could be a swimmer.
The dark shape in the water was difficult to make out from the headland at South Cronulla on Monday evening, so she grabbed her phone and zoomed in.
“I was worried that it was a person, I was just thinking, ‘is that a flipper?’,” she told Yahoo News Australia.
“I could not make out what it was so I got out my phone and I took a video and zoomed right in, and that’s when I was like, ‘oh my god, it’s a magpie’.
“It was out where the waves were breaking and it was going up with the waves, it could not get out, it was flapping… it was going to drown.”
Mrs Williams said she felt helpless watching the creature struggle, but with no-one around and her six-month-old baby strapped to her chest, there was little she could do but watch as seagulls swooped the drowning bird.
'Beautiful' moment as surfer comes to the rescue
After 10 long minutes, some nearby surfers started catching waves in the direction of the bird with one young man noticing the magpie in the water.
“He swam up to it and put his board under it like lifesavers do and started to paddle in, but every time a wave would come he was struggling to lift his board up with the bird on it. So he ended up picking up the bird and every time a wave would come he’d hold it up in the air out of the water,” she said.
The surfer slowly made his way back to shore with the exhausted bird, eventually climbing on to the rocks with his board in one hand and the magpie in the other.
“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.”
Mrs Williams said she watched until the surfer and the bird were out of view, and later shared a photo of the heartwarming rescue on her local Facebook page.
The post quickly attracted almost 700 reactions from other members of the community, who praised the surfer’s efforts.
“This legend won't be getting swooped this season!” one man wrote.
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Magpie on the mend
Mrs Williams was hoping someone would recognise the surfer, but so far he remains anonymous.
“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”.
The magpie was taken to Cronulla Vet Clinic, where he "picked up quickly" and was kept overnight for observation, staff member Debra Jackson told Yahoo.
"A carer collected him and will nurse it to let him get his strength back and he will be put back out roughly where he was found," she said, sharing a photo of the recovering magpie.
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