"He first showed up at our preschool quite a few months ago," the centre's director Nicole Denzin said.

"He knocked on the backdoor literally. He was at the door tapping and knocking. We tried to find the owner but couldn't.

"So he's been our bird for months, probably since the beginning of the year."

The children adore Pom Pom. He's become a celebrity bird.

Each day after preschool ends, he goes home with a family for the night.

In an unfortunate accident, during one of these adventures, Pom Pom flew the coop.

Problem was Pom Pom was due to go home with a family for the weekend.

"I thought, 'I better go and get another bird'," Nicole said.

The replacement bird, also a cockatiel, was put in Pom Pom's cage.

The youngsters caught on quick-smart.

"Where's Pom Pom, where's Pom Pom?" they cried.

The preschool staff tried to reassure the kids, saying "Pom Pom's not here but this is Pom Pom's friend".

"It was so awkward," Nicole said, giggling.

The centre posted about the missing Pom Pom on lost pet Facebook pages.

"The next day we had a phone call from the beautiful staff at Callaghan College, who said Pom Pom had been attacked by some other birds," Nicole said.

"He must have flown onto one of the student's shoulders because he's quite tame. They grabbed him and took him to the office," she said.

Nicole headed over to the school thinking Pom Pom might not be in great shape.

"But he was fine," she said.

Nicole got a gift card for the students to say thank you for saving Pom Pom, who is now back at the preschool where kids regularly fawn over him.

The replacement bird, which the kids considered somewhat of an impostor, is now at Nicole's place.

"I'm training her just in case. Who knows, we might have two birds that we borrow out now," she said.

Speaking of bird attacks, we were sitting in the Newcastle Herald office at Honeysuckle on a Sunday recently, when we saw a bird battle out the window.

A murderous magpie was brutally attacking a defenceless dove on the balcony of the Herald's building. The maggie was fair dinkum in a rage.

We tried to intervene and save the dove, but the damage was done. It died soon after.

Which made us wonder about this tough, angry, inner-city magpie.

Magpies out in the suburbs don't seem so violent. Must not be enough worms, seeds and berries to go around at Honeysuckle because of all the concrete.

Anyhow, Herald sports editor Robert Dillon put all this in perspective when he came over to check out the commotion.

"Ahh, it's just a rat with wings," the battle-hardened Dillo said.

We're on a roll, so we're sticking with the bird theme.

"Knowing you like unusual photos, I attach this one," former NBN newsreader Ray Dinneen said in an email.

"I have never seen kookaburras at the Civic Theatre before, but I spotted these during the magpie swooping season.

"Maybe the kookaburras cleared out of Civic Park so they wouldn't get blamed [for swooping].

"They seem to me to be saying, 'Dum de dah, nothing happening around here lately'."