Sorry if this title has excited any adverse responses (PTSD, violent tendencies, uncontrolled weeping, etc...) but, in a bit of misleading advertising, I mean actual magpies.

Apart from once-a-week participation in 'DATrippers' for Friday's cryptic crossword purposes, and several fairly focused Whatsapps, Demonland is my only social media / forum participation. So this where I've come to share my experience today of a Spring phenomenon that's sprung up in Autumn: on my daily ride I was swooped by a magpie.

Climate change? Has anyone else experienced this out-of-season nastiness?

9 minutes ago, Timothy Reddan-A'Blew said:

Sorry if this title has excited any adverse responses (PTSD, violent tendencies, uncontrolled weeping, etc...) but, in a bit of misleading advertising, I mean actual magpies.

Apart from once-a-week participation in 'DATrippers' for Friday's cryptic crossword purposes, and several fairly focused Whatsapps, Demonland is my only social media / forum participation. So this where I've come to share my experience today of a Spring phenomenon that's sprung up in Autumn: on my daily ride I was swooped by a magpie.

Climate change? Has anyone else experienced this out-of-season nastiness?

Thanks for sharing, Timothy. I’m in the same boat. No socials.

Quite the opposite experience.

I’ve made friends with a magpie who waits for me most days. He sits on my letterbox.

People walk by, he watches them the whole time way and lets them get within a meter of him.

I assume he’s being fed by a neighbor, he’s overly friendly.

Hope he keeps eating grubs I’ve found in my garden.

21 minutes ago, GawnOfTheDead said:

Hope he keeps eating grubs I’ve found in my garden.

Aren't they clever how they find stuff in the ground. I've got a family broadly resident on my nature strip doing this, providing passing entertainment.

So I'm fairly 'simpatico' with the breed, which makes the swoopers that much harder to take ('Aren't I a nice guy guys?')

My local park has signs up warning of swooping magpies - I did think this was much earlier in the year than normal. I had to go home and get my slingshot.

24 minutes ago, Timothy Reddan-A'Blew said:

Aren't they clever how they find stuff in the ground. I've got a family broadly resident on my nature strip doing this, providing passing entertainment.

So I'm fairly 'simpatico' with the breed, which makes the swoopers that much harder to take ('Aren't I a nice guy guys?')

They sure are, I figure if I’m nice to him.. he won’t swoop me..

I might find myself unstuck one day by this thought process if he betrays me, though.

I’ll let you know if that happens! 😂

14 minutes ago, Ethan Tremblay said:

My local park has signs up warning of swooping magpies - I did think this was much earlier in the year than normal. I had to go home and get my slingshot.

That you, Ethan?

Edited Wednesday at 12:384 days by GawnOfTheDead

1 minute ago, GawnOfTheDead said:

That you, Ethan?

Not to the face. But I couldn’t find a rock one day so I had to improvise. I took the inside of a pen out so it was just the ballpoint tip and the ink cylinder and loaded that in. That ended up through my finger and got stuck in the bone.

8 hours ago, Ethan Tremblay said:

Not to the face. But I couldn’t find a rock one day so I had to improvise. I took the inside of a pen out so it was just the ballpoint tip and the ink cylinder and loaded that in. That ended up through my finger and got stuck in the bone.

Serves you right! 😂

We have a family of Magpies on our property and we feed them, the baby (who is now a year old) east while we are right next to it pretty much, the parents are still more wary, At the moment they are getting good nesting spots and you will possibly see them fighting/swooping other magpies as they assert their right to that territory.

I have a family of 3 which I have named Larry, Moe and Curlie who waltz up to my front door announcing their presence with beautiful harmonies wanting breakfast.I oblige with shredded devon loaf. Myself and neighbours NEVER get swooped but unsuspecting bike riders can be sometimes. Grouse to watch!

I can definitely relate and sympathise. The Magpie Alert app/website is my go to when I get swooped (or bitten😮) whilst riding but as you mentioned swooping season is usually September to November when 100’s incidents are recorded. Not many recorded on Magpie Alert for 2026. Is your 2026 swooper there🤔

Magpie Alert!

MAGPIE ALERT! For Aussies to Share Swooping Magpie Attack...

It's magpie swooping season! If you are cycling, running or just in the park, register swooping magpie attacks here and help protect people across Australia!

Edited Wednesday at 22:213 days by Lord Ivanhoe

14 minutes ago, Lord Ivanhoe said:

I can definitely relate and sympathise. The Magpie Alert app/website is my go to when I get swooped (or bitten😮) whilst riding but as you mentioned swooping season is usually September to November when 100’s incidents are recorded. Not many recorded on Magpie Alert for 2026. Is your 2026 swooper there🤔

Magpie Alert!

MAGPIE ALERT! For Aussies to Share Swooping Magpie Attack...

It's magpie swooping season! If you are cycling, running or just in the park, register swooping magpie attacks here and help protect people across Australia!

Thanks!

It's not, but it will be!

It was at the same place as a Spring swoop, which I then removed from my circuit. I thought it would be safe now to reintroduce it...

We have been accepted by the family of magpies living in and around our yard - apparently they have the ability to learn people/faces?

Any visitors or delivery people or even neighbours that come by get swooped.

Edited Wednesday at 23:073 days by JTR

Actual Magpies are smarter, friendlier, and better looking that football magpies. And not a liability to Australian football, either.

The magpies at my Mum's place became very friendly after being fed for a while. They would bring new babies to visit and be introduced, and would happily sit on your knee for a chat - hoping the chat would become food, of course. Mum stopped feeding them years ago but they still visit to help with the gardening. "Oh, you don't want that grub you just dug up? Okay, I will clear it for you."

Fantastically intelligent birds. My old uni did a study where they got biology students to wear costume masks and go around campus mildly annoying the magpies and crows. Months later the poor students wore them again and just walked around harmlessly, and every magpie and crow on campus was harassing them. Not only did the birds remember them, but they had been able to communicate a description of the masked villians to other birds who had never actually seen them or been harassed.

So perhaps @Timothy Reddan-A'Blew resemble @Ethan Tremblay and is being targeted in a tragic case of mistaken revenge?

Bonus fun fact - there are recognisable differences in the markings of Victorian and NSW magpies. NSW has a lot less white, especially across the back and shoulders. And magpies have regional dialects for their songs.

I've had several generations of a family of magpies living at my place for over 25 years and I love hearing their warbling in the morning.

We have a mutual respect and I maintain a frequently replenished birdbath for them.

However, feeding magpies mince or other fatty meats is not good for them. A quick Google search will confirm this.

13 minutes ago, Little Goffy said:

So perhaps @Timothy Reddan-A'Blew resemble @Ethan Tremblay and is being targeted in a tragic case of mistaken revenge?

That's it; the beard comes off right now![

1 hour ago, Demonstone said:

I've had several generations of a family of magpies living at my place for over 25 years and I love hearing their warbling in the morning.

We have a mutual respect and I maintain a frequently replenished birdbath for them.

However, feeding magpies mince or other fatty meats is not good for them. A quick Google search will confirm this.

Mince in particular is bad because in addition to being fatty it is very sticky, can get stuck in underside of top beak and if they cant remove it, it can rot and damage/destroy the beak.

We also have a bird bath and feed our ones dried meal worms.

2 hours ago, JTR said:

Mince in particular is bad because in addition to being fatty it is very sticky, can get stuck in underside of top beak and if they cant remove it, it can rot and damage/destroy the beak.

We also have a bird bath and feed our ones dried meal worms.

Dried meal worms are our go to as well!

18 hours ago, Timothy Reddan-A'Blew said:

Sorry if this title has excited any adverse responses (PTSD, violent tendencies, uncontrolled weeping, etc...) but, in a bit of misleading advertising, I mean actual magpies.

Apart from once-a-week participation in 'DATrippers' for Friday's cryptic crossword purposes, and several fairly focused Whatsapps, Demonland is my only social media / forum participation. So this where I've come to share my experience today of a Spring phenomenon that's sprung up in Autumn: on my daily ride I was swooped by a magpie.

Climate change? Has anyone else experienced this out-of-season nastiness?

Get one of these.

26 minutes ago, layzie said:

Get one of these.

Thanks!

I'm actually going to remount my previously-Spring-only very high 'aerial' to hinder them getting near me in the first place. And I've just bought myself some wrap-around sunnies.

p.s. You couldn't know it but that guy is my doppelganger! (though probs more hair under the lid...)

2 minutes ago, Timothy Reddan-A'Blew said:

Thanks!

I'm actually going to remount my previously-Spring-only very high 'aerial' to hinder them getting near me in the first place. And I've just bought myself some wrap-around sunnies.

p.s. You couldn't know it but that guy is my doppelganger! (though probs more hair under the lid...)

Haha nice one.

Yeah apparently the spikiness resembles an Echidna which deters them.

1 minute ago, layzie said:

Haha nice one.

Yeah apparently the spikiness resembles an Echidna which deters them.

We have lots of echidnas (cute) and lots of roadkill (not so cute) around here.

Opportunity may strike?...

Living in Sydney’s Inner West just maybe 8kms from the city centre, we experience next to no magpie traffic… we do however, have a family of about seven (at last count) bush turkeys, who I love! They wander around the footpaths of our beautiful tree canopied street, entirely unphased by the human, as well as mechanical traffic, scratching around for edibles.

But as this topic is about off season magpies and not bush turkeys, I can only relate one such incident from several decades ago, in the mid 1970’s, when I was living in Canberra. I was employed as a gardener at the Woden Cemetery, a job that I wasn’t particularly suited to, as I knew absolutely nothing about gardening and being somewhat of an empath, I found it difficult seeing each day out, having spent it surrounded by mourning people in varying states of grief. It wasn’t particularly long before I literally walked off that job one lunchtime, never to return.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, it was January, the middle of a heat wave, and a f&$king magpie thought it might be fun to swoop me. End of story!!

Edited Thursday at 15:542 days by hardtack

Something else I thing interesting about Magpies is that they appear to be (for want of a better term) human adjacent.

If you're ever driving out in the remote countryside somewhere and see a Magpie, there is almost always a house nearby.