A magpie and dog friendship that has amassed a 700,000-plus following on social media has been ended, with the bird seized by wildlife officials. Juliette Wells and Reece Mortensen kept Molly the magpie and Peggy the staffordshire bull terrier at their Gold Coast home, sharing their pets’ antics via Instagram and in a book published late last year.
The story behind Molly and Peggy’s unlikely friendship. The couple said they rescued Molly when she fell from a nest in a tree at a local park. “Reece knelt down to see if the bird was OK, and she ran up his arm and rested on his shoulder,” Wells told 7NEWS in 2021. They brought the magpie home where they fed and nurtured her. From there, the interspecies animal friendship blossomed. “She’ll fly away for a couple of days and then she’ll come back,” Mortensen said in 2021.