While this enduring practice continues to dominate the free and peculiar lifestyle of the Ridge, it seems people are not the only ones affected by such bonds of loyalty, as was discovered on a recent trip to the Nine-Mile.

After venturing onto the camp of Geoff McFadden you soon realise where this old miner’s heart lies, family and opal not included - with his cockatoo named Harry and a pigeon that he said have been best mates for the past eight years.

This strange relationship started one day when Geoff returned from a trip into town and found a pigeon sitting inside the cockatoo cage with Harry, who was sharing his feed with his guest.

This was a strange occurrence as there was a reason Harry was secured in the cage.

He generally got himself into mischief when he was left alone and often would chase guests who came for a visit.

This intolerance followed Harry who, now in his cage, would not have a bar of anyone else eating his food but him. Until this fateful day when Harry apparently chose company over a fight.

Geoff’s first thoughts were that there must be some sort of connection between these two birds.

“Usually Harry will chase other birds but they just became mates,” said Mr McFadden.

“He gets angry with anyone taking his food, he won’t even let the offspring of the pigeon take any.”

As the years passed, the bond between these two birds strengthened - as Geoff and his family realised after an encounter around the breakfast table one morning.

It was business as usual; Harry was on his perch in the corner and everyone else was sitting around the table. Suddenly, the pigeon flew in and sat next to his mate and with one turn of his head, and in perfect English, Harry said; “Hello son”.

“That was what we used to say to him.” said Mr McFadden.

“If you trained him to do it he couldn’t have done it better.”