22 August 2013

Approaching Magpie Swooping Season

| tea7
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The first magpie attack of the season was reported on the 23rd of August last year.

Coming up to the anniversary of that date, I wanted to invite Rioters to add pins to this google map http://goo.gl/maps/SSdGr, as swooping magpies are encountered this season.

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troll-sniffer11:32 am 01 Oct 13

Another comment re magpie experience (personal)… years ago when I was walking to school with friends I threw sticks at a magpie, which then targeted me and only me for the rest of the season. lesson learnt. Then we went overseas for two years and on return I once again started to walk to school with the same friends, and from the same tree a magpie targeted me and me only. I have to assume it was the same bird that hadn’t forgotten.

Moral of the story? Never antagonise a magpie.

Got a couple near our house that seem intent on attacking my 7 year old son. They’ll ignore the rest of us on bikes (including a 3 year old). Tried different helmets, clothes and bike but they just seem to hate him.

troll-sniffer said :

An interesting observation was made by myself, me and I today. Walking around the eastern end of the lake I did perchance upon a gentleman at odds with a magpie that had just tapped on his helmet. he was sorta annoyed and was throwing sticks at the magpie. “N-o-o-o-o” I thought, “he’s stuffed it for the rest of us now.”

Well, I busied myself about warning the next few bike riders to look out because the magpie would most likely be murderously pissed off with all the cyclists passing by for the rest of the season, yet a strange thing happened. Most cyclists were allowed through unmolested or only mildly warned. but about one ion every half dozen copped the full swoop, swoop treatment for up to a hundred metres.

Didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it though I noted a couple of the swoopees had white t-shirts, another had a bright orange bike.

I’ve ridden past said magpie a few times with my cricket hat on (nice and white, no glint as from a helmet), and have only copped a mild warning whoosh once when I stopped and had a look at something near the base of the tree.

So, it seems magpies have an imprint of something they don’t like, and if you fit that imprint you’ll get swooped. others won’t.

(I also know from experience that in isolated areas magpies will attack anything that comes within their nesting area, and the more animals etc that pass regularly through will make them more choosy about what to expend their efforts on. Most magpies that have properly adapted to inner city living wouldn’t be able to feed themselves and chicks if they tried to chase away every interloper in their territory.

Maybe they’re smarter and knew you were watching.

If they stuck to their pattern you would know so they decided to change it up a bit?

Magpies this year seem to be going other magpies a lot. What happened to all the other birds and the Indian miners?

troll-sniffer9:03 pm 30 Sep 13

An interesting observation was made by myself, me and I today. Walking around the eastern end of the lake I did perchance upon a gentleman at odds with a magpie that had just tapped on his helmet. he was sorta annoyed and was throwing sticks at the magpie. “N-o-o-o-o” I thought, “he’s stuffed it for the rest of us now.”

Well, I busied myself about warning the next few bike riders to look out because the magpie would most likely be murderously pissed off with all the cyclists passing by for the rest of the season, yet a strange thing happened. Most cyclists were allowed through unmolested or only mildly warned. but about one ion every half dozen copped the full swoop, swoop treatment for up to a hundred metres.

Didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it though I noted a couple of the swoopees had white t-shirts, another had a bright orange bike.

I’ve ridden past said magpie a few times with my cricket hat on (nice and white, no glint as from a helmet), and have only copped a mild warning whoosh once when I stopped and had a look at something near the base of the tree.

So, it seems magpies have an imprint of something they don’t like, and if you fit that imprint you’ll get swooped. others won’t.

(I also know from experience that in isolated areas magpies will attack anything that comes within their nesting area, and the more animals etc that pass regularly through will make them more choosy about what to expend their efforts on. Most magpies that have properly adapted to inner city living wouldn’t be able to feed themselves and chicks if they tried to chase away every interloper in their territory.

A study into what works best in thwarting the swoop of the parenting magpie. What worked will surprise you- or not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wHreVKgOT4&feature=player_embedded

Speaking of magpies, I just had one wander in my back door and ask me for a feed 🙂

Cheeky little bugger, he shows complete disdain for the cats…

But ever so much more civilised than those psycho, testosterone-filled swoopers.

patrick_keogh10:17 pm 29 Sep 13

fabforty said :

Is it over yet ?

No, two swooped me on this morning’s ride. Both pretty half-hearted though.

Its not just the magpies. There’s also a lapwing going all psycho near Flynn Place near the National Library.

Is it over yet ?

The worst magpie I’ve ever dealt with was one of the most vicious and cunning I’d ever had the misfortune to be on the receiving end of. First time I was walking past a small mall, got swooped but it wasn’t a normal snap of the beak near the ear but a full snap on the back of the head drawing blood.

Second time, same place and got swooped again so I made a dash for the nearby mall and waited. I could see people walking around in the carpark without getting swooped. I waited for around ten minutes so I figured that the coast was clear… nope. The moment I was in the open I got swooped again. Mongrel thing was waiting for me.

Didn’t walk that way after that.

had blood drawn yesterday between the hospice and kings avenue bridge but he seemed selective on who he attacked, other cyclists got through without issue

muscledude_oz10:10 am 16 Sep 13

Our concern with magpie attacks has caused a bit of bemusement overseas in the past. I had a penfriend in Los Angeles during the 1980s and ’90s and he sent a clipping from the LA Times about croc attacks in the NT. One Darwin resident was quoted as saying “You know what the biggest wildlife problem in Canberra is? Magpies. They run education programs telling residents how to live with magpies”.

thebrownstreak699:16 am 16 Sep 13

RB78 said :

Making friends with them definitely helps. I remember as a kid, I’d sit in my backyard and eat some toast for breakfast and chuck some crusts to the birds. The magpies would always come down and eat it and over time I had them actually sitting next to me or on the ground in front of me and if I held out a ice they’d come and take it from me.

There was a big gum tree up the road where they’d swoop walkers and cyclists, but they never went after me 🙂

Just don’t be too good to them – my in laws fed them too much and they now come up and to their beaks on the back door when they’re hungry!

My bro-in-law has done the same thing. And now his back deck gets covered in bird s*** on a regular basis.

The friends thing works in your local area. We have fed a few generations of a few different families for about twenty years and I have not been swooped in the locale in living memory. Once outside their territory, it appears they don’t word other magpies up on who the helpful humans are.

Making friends with them definitely helps. I remember as a kid, I’d sit in my backyard and eat some toast for breakfast and chuck some crusts to the birds. The magpies would always come down and eat it and over time I had them actually sitting next to me or on the ground in front of me and if I held out a ice they’d come and take it from me.

There was a big gum tree up the road where they’d swoop walkers and cyclists, but they never went after me 🙂

Just don’t be too good to them – my in laws fed them too much and they now come up and to their beaks on the back door when they’re hungry!

Madam Cholet1:50 pm 10 Sep 13

I heard something on 666 the other day that suggeested that if you ‘make friends’ with them then they will indded pretty much leave you alone – unless you do something out of the ordinary. The guy being interviewed said he fed his couple in residence some oats – which I have duly now done. Ours are coming quite close to us now and we chat away like we are old friends! I’m hoping they will pass the word around that we are good folk not to be swooped! Crazy magpie woman!

I am lucky enough to have two nests with babies in two trees on my block, one out front, the other out back.

They have been there since we moved in, and only swoop the cats. That being said, they have given a few warning fly by’s. I talk to them like a crazy person when I get the washing off the line, but they seem ok so long as I mow the grass regularly for them to get their feed on

Postalgeek said :

Watson said :

I feel really dumb, but I can’t figure out how to add a marker?

Click the red Edit button, and a marker icon will appear at the top of the map. Click it and go from there. I assume tea7 would appreciate you resisting the temptation to edit anything else.

I only just saw this. I was going to add a magpie in Casey that started swooping in early August. But when I passed there a couple of days ago, I did not get swooped!

neanderthalsis11:34 am 10 Sep 13

Just added a cyclist hating magpie in residence outside the Pork Barrel in Parkes. I walk past there frequently and have had no issues with said bird, but anyone on a bike is fair game for it.

Starting to get a lot more locations on the map.

Just updated the map. Looks like they are finally swooping in Weston Creek.

Watson said :

I feel really dumb, but I can’t figure out how to add a marker?

Click the red Edit button, and a marker icon will appear at the top of the map. Click it and go from there. I assume tea7 would appreciate you resisting the temptation to edit anything else.

I feel really dumb, but I can’t figure out how to add a marker?

Apologies for my poor quoting effort ^

troll-sniffer6:02 pm 02 Sep 13

Postalgeek said :

I love magpies.

In England they have a quaint tradition whereby you tip your cap and greet the magpie thus, ” Good morning Mr Magpie and how is your wife?”

Of course in Australia he’s likely to swear at you and tear out one of your eyes, still, you never know. A bit of manners may make all the difference.

Incidentally I haven’t been swooped for decades.

You need to get on a bicycle. Magpies have a pathological hatred of cyclists. They’d make a good mascot for motorists.

Helmetless, as always, I get swooped only a couple of times a year… even in known swooping spots. Doesn’t guarantee immunity but I do find even the swoopers seem to be less vicious than against a glinting helmet. The only two regular swoopers of tousled free hair I know of in my travels around (inner) Canberra are along the track at the back of Ainslie near the substation, and the neurotic one near St Andrews in Forrest.

I love magpies.

In England they have a quaint tradition whereby you tip your cap and greet the magpie thus, ” Good morning Mr Magpie and how is your wife?”

Of course in Australia he’s likely to swear at you and tear out one of your eyes, still, you never know. A bit of manners may make all the difference.

Incidentally I haven’t been swooped for decades.

You need to get on a bicycle. Magpies have a pathological hatred of cyclists. They’d make a good mascot for motorists.

eep…this is one thing i definitely don’t miss since leaving canberra. i have always had a bird phobia and i lived with constant anxiety in canberra whenever i would see a magpie (which increased exponentially in spring-time).

but the birds seem to be particularly aggressive in canberra….even galahs get in on the swooping act!

good luck canberrans…

and also, i agree with #6, magpie cull…they’re dangerous and frightening

Thanks for the contributions so far! Now that Spring is officially here, keep them coming 🙂

Added one – entrance to Callum Brae nature reserve last Sunday. Maggie had a go at hubby and then me just after we climbed through the gate.

Time for a Magpie cull?

I feed the local mags and currawongs small (cheap) dog biscuits, there was a huge mob of them this morning, waiting. I’ve noticed them collecting things to make nests, so I might have to buy more dog biscuits… but on the upside, I think they’re also controlling the insects that stuff up the trees.

I had a young mag hooning a few weeks ago, and he flew right through my window. which was closed at the time. sliced off some feathers but he seemed OK, flew off when I tried to put him in a box to go to the vet.

Madam Cholet3:08 pm 22 Aug 13

We have a gorgeous magpie couple who have made their home just across the road from our house. They forage very regularly in our garden for nesting material. So lovely to watch them getting ready for a new family.

It isn’t so nice when they swoop you, so I have tried to ‘make friends’ with them and let them know that we are not a threat – as much as you can with a pair of magpies obviously. I think we have an understanding. I’m not sure if that actually works – will wait and see, but haven’t had a problem with them in previous years when they have nested in our tree – if indeed it is the same couple.

johnboy said :

I got swooped two weeks ago at the uriarra reserve

Were you wearing your tin foil hat?

I already had a fairly persistent one – 2 weekends ago – 11 August. Bottom of Coulter Drive. Will try to add it.

I got swooped two weeks ago at the uriarra reserve

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