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Side by side with humans, let the songbirds sing





With Spring now upon us, Melbourne is heading deep into the midst of AFL footy finals. We are also in the middle of magpie nesting season. And that means talk of magpies swooping. (For a Collingwood fan, this has extra significance, but I digress.)

Already the images of attacking maggies are circulating on social media—there's this Buzzfeed tweet, and Google searches filled with helmetcam swoop pics. There’s even a magpie attack map where hapless humans can drop a pin where the magpie tried to drop in on them. There are dates, times, exact locations, but more than that, there are also magpie stories. Stories of swooping aggressors, sure, but stories of people making friends with magpies, feeding them, and learning to live with them.

My great grandfather wrote stories of the magpies in the Australian bush, taking shelter in the highest trees to avoid predators, rain and floods. ‘The Magpies chose the tallest tree/That anywhere their eyes could see/Where they’d be safe from every harm/Their nest they built secure and warm,’ he wrote in the 1940s. 

Male magpies may swoop to protect their young in nesting season, between July and November, but it is by no means all magpies who do this. Urban ecologist, Darryl Jones, writes, ‘For some reason, certain males (around 10% of breeding pairs) have come to view humans as serious threats to their chicks and act accordingly.’ Sensing threat, the birds may fly a pass low over the heads of passers-by, though they rarely do so more than 100–150 metres from their nest. In many cases, this will only be a warning swoop, with actual contact less likely. As Jones notes in a paper on human–magpie conflict, ‘A typical attack involves distinctive alarm calling, wing-drooping and a direct flight toward the intruder...’ but this does not usually result in contact. 

 Magpies live in family groups and in the same places for many years, building their little communities, and scientists say that the birds come to know faces and recognise people. Once they register a person as harmless, they are less likely to feel threatened, so there’s less need to put the swoop into action. Perhaps we just need to make some strategic decisions in our urban meanderings: take the longer way through the park, or walk in a group; walk, don’t run; and if you’re on a bike, it might be best to dismount. Waving of umbrellas, running and screaming make you look like, yeah, a threat. 

Magpies last year won The Guardian’s most popular bird award. We love these beautiful singing birds, even if they may be intimidating at times. How about we recognise them for the beauties they are: wild creatures, just trying to make a safe home in the big city, like us. We could learn ways to live side by side with them, rather than feel threatened by them. As Albert Sublet, my great-grandfather wrote: 'And soft as dew, the mystic notes/Came from the Magpies' pulsing throats/And, ever since, a plaintive tune/The Magpies sing when shines the moon.’

Instead of picturing an attack bird in my mind, I'd rather look at this gentle painting done by my great-grandfather. Better still, I'll get out into nature and spend some time with them. Enjoy Spring and the magpies' song, and at this end of the season, I think it's fair to say: ‘Go Pies!’

Painting by Albert Sublet



Aspects of this story were published in a meditation of magpies, memory and my father in The Sunday Age, on September 2, 2018

In 2019, I was asked to contribute to the Guardian's Bird of the Year Poll with a piece of my own on magpies. Magpies pick me up and sweep me away into family memories.

(c) Anna Sublet 




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