According to Ms McPherson, the intelligent creatures remember individual human facial features and stop swooping those who feed them or enter their territory regularly
“The males will be attacking from August to November to defend their mates and eggs/chicks in the nest in a tree,” she said.
“A pair of magpies tend to nest in the same tree each year. These aerial stealth bombers are extreme vigilantes who take protection of their young to extremes.
Only the males attack and do so from behind so they have the element of surprise. Most of the time, they only bluff but occasionally, an overzealous magpie goes too far and draws blood by pecking at someone’s anatomy whilst on the wing.”
Ms McPherson said the most effective strategy to avoid getting swooped is to change your route, wear sunglasses, and move along as fast as you can run or pedal. Another strategy is to paint ‘eyes’ on the back of your helmet to fool the magpies.
“Deliberately destroying a swooping magpie is illegal as they are a native protected species. With dad out of the picture, the chicks are generally doomed,” she said.
“The male parent takes the fledgling chicks on neighbourhood backyard excursions to teach them to forage for worms, insects and other prey items. When you see magpie chicks on the ground, there’s no need to ‘rescue’ them unless they are small and were blown out of the nest on a windy day.
“Older chicks are meant to be on the ground, learning to forage and their parents will be watching from a nearby tree ready to attack you if you come too close to their precious offspring.
“Galah, corella and sulphur crested cockatoo chicks are also meant to be on the ground to learn to self-feed therefore do not pick them up for a ‘rescue’ unless injured or sickly.”
Ms McPherson also warned that once the magpie swooping season is over, there will be other avian aerial terrorists ready to take their place such as magpie larks and kookaburras.
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