Hi Everyone
Last week's Talk to the Animals show had a segment on divebombing magpies and
I thought I'd relate two of my own experiences.
Experience No. 1
Many years ago I was walking through Hyde Park. At this stage I hadn't taken
up birdwatching and knew nothing about divebombing magpies, but enjoyed
looking at birds. Consequently when a magpie started flying straight towards
me, I thought "isn't is nice to see him flying.....". He was coming straight
at my face (not from behind) and as he got closer I started thinking "ooh,
he's coming close" and finally "ooh, duck!!" Unless he was going to curve up
at the last second, I'm sure he would have pecked me in the face. My heart
certainly jumped.
Experience No. 2
Far more recently my friend Sheila Witt and I were birdwatching in a park on
the banks of the Parramatta River in Meadowbank. We had our binoculars and
were obviously birdwatchers. As we wandered along, at least three people came
up to us and complained mightily about a vicious magpie at the end of the park
(I don't know what they thought we could do about it!). Well we decided to go
and look for this magpie as Sheila had never seen a divebomber, and sure
enough as we approached the spot, the magpie swooped down on a bloke and
clipped him on the head. The bloke shook his fist at the maggie, picked up a
stick and threw it at the bird up in the tree. (That would have helped!)
Note that we didn't have hats on. When Sheila and I got close to the tree, we
looked up at the magpie and said to him "you won't divebomb us, will you? you
know we're birdwatchers that don't mean you any harm". And the magpie left us
alone!
Happy birding
Irene Denton
Sydney NSW
Australia
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