Deliberately provoking them as a kid to get swooped is a cornerstone of any upbringing.
Also plovers swoop people too.The icecream container hat for you too?
Na, bike helmet with zipties.
Just feed them once a week with dog biscuits or meal worms - not too much though (and no mincemeat or bread)
Kids used to get swooped on the way to the school bus. We started feeding them. Now kids in front of them get swooped, kids behind them get swooped, my kids are “the untouchables”… 🤣🤣 Magpies recognise people (like crows do)…
If you can set up a routine, they’ll even sing for you. Ours will sit on the mailbox and sing in the mornings or evenings. They even bring their babies along once they hatch.
They can get ballsy - one year they started tapping on the glass of my back door when they were hungry. I gently shooed them away and only fed them out the front in the evenings. They got with the program super quick…
Wagga wagga citizen how do you call yourself? Wagga Waggers?
Wagga, please
Waggles, actually
Wait, that episode of Bluey was based on a real thing?!? WTF Australia?
Bluey was apparently a documentary.
Is this really about magpies? I’m asking because those are also local to Germany and aside from being known to be able to steal things they are harmless if you don’t piss them off (crows too).
Are those more dangerous or is the sign over the top?
Honestly curious.
Edit: Thanks for the Answers, TIL!
They aren’t just trying to scare you.
They’ll take your eyes.
Like. Peck your fucking eyes out.
They’re also not related to the Eurasian magpie
I finally understand where Hitchcock got his idea for the birds, then.
I always thought that was one of his not so good and rather silly movies, but in that context…
The worst experience I had as a kid was with geese.
Damn. Just the injury was bad enough, but that girl is probably going to have some kind of ptsd if she ever hears those magpies outside.
Different species but similar evolutionary niche and look passingly similar hence the name. Australian magpies are highly territorial and will aggressively defend their nests during the egg rearing time of year resulting in some quite vicious attacks with walkers and cyclists often resorting to defensive measures to protect themselves from attack.
This is just normal behaviour for the seagulls here in the city lol
It’s not the same, at all.
The magpies want you dead.
The seagulls want you to feed em.
As with most creatures in Australia I guess, the Magpies are out to get you and you could take precautions but The eyes don’t work…
To be fair, they might work if they weren’t drawn like shit.
It’s Australia, everything is deadly. Even your nettle species can kill you, what’s it called, gimpy gimpy or some shit. Hawks that grab burning brands from fires to drop in new areas to chase out game they can grab, and everything else.
Marvin Boggs: Do you know what’s wrong with this country?
Sarah Ross: They’re all trying to kill us?
Marvin Boggs: Exactly!
report a swooping bird incident
Not sure why, but that’s funny.
Are they really that aggressive even without protecting their young/eggs? Because that I have experienced many times (Northern Europe, all sorts of birds).
even without protecting their young/eggs?
No, the swooping is to protect their young.
Because that I have experienced many times
You have not experienced swooping by an Australian Magpie
The magpie is trying to kill you. Not scare you.
Moving here is anything but dull 😁😅
Crikey!
birds will do it, if you are close to thier nest.
My experience of Corvids is not to piss them off, they hold grudges and pass them down through generations.
Although, I feed the crows and ravens in my area, and they seem nice enough.
I suppose, pissing them off might have been the issue here.
They look like corvids but Australian magpies are (and sound like) songbirds.
Edit: Passerine, not songbird
It was the picture, looked like a magpie to me, but I’m happy to be corrected.
At least there’s only one
