Yeah, they’re prevalent around here (along with cockatoos and galahs, and I always get bemused when those are portrayed as an exotic bird overseas, because we’ve got tons of the cheeky buggers)
I’ve been swooped a few times by magpies, but usually in a neighbourhood I’m not familiar. On my regular walks I rarely get swooped, I think it’s partly to do with magpies laying off humans that they know. During most of the year they’re very chill and will warble contentedly. For a few months in late spring, they are scary as hell if they’ve decided you don’t belong somewhere.
At least they’re not plovers. I hate those things. WHY THE HELL DO YOU BUILD A NEST IN THE MIDDLE OF A PARK LAWN AND THEN GET PISSED OFF WHEN PEOPLE GET NEAR IT YOU STUPID BIRDS.
My cat does the exact same thing with her feet, but has more of them, not being a magpie.
Australian Fauna: Cute, murderous or both!
cute!!
I’ll stick with good ol’ @chickieD s…
I think it was really interested in stealing those red fingernails.
That’s a juvenile magpie- some gray feathers rather than either black or white, and beak and tail feathers have yet to grow to full size.
Juveniles tend to be fairly tame and play with each other a lot.
Perhaps, but I used to walk the same route home from school every bloody day, and I still have traumatic memories of blood seeping through my hair after one of quite a few swooping attacks.
I do find it amusing when all the cyclists start sticking zip ties to their helmets pointing outwards to scare the magpies away, but cyclists are particularly vulnerable to the vicious bastards.
I always delight in showing my American friends videos of magpies, particularly magpie song - to the crowd around my age, they almost always make the same observation: Magpies sing like old Modems.
I was swooped once riding a motorbike. Luckily I got to see my shadow in front of me get swooped by a shadow bird before hearing the clack of talons on the top of my helmet. They are, in two words, fucking psychotic.
Of course, to be fair, they have a lovely song.
I got swooped by a pigeon once, of all things. My immediate thought, oddly, was that someone had dropped a bag lunch on my head.
I’m sure that’s exactly what a Utahraptor would have sounded like.
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