It’s magpie attack time and a particularly aggressive bird is ruffling diplomatic feathers in Canberra.
Usually I listen for maggie stories from Tasmania during spring but my attention has been drawn to a breach of entente cordial between the human and natural world in our capital territory.
Japan’s ambassador Yamagami Shingo has reported he lives in fear of magpies in the swooping season.
In his latest blog about his role in Australia, “News from under the Southern Cross”, Ambassador Shingo details encounters with the “bird of terror” – magpies – during his E-bike rides along the shores of Lake Burley Griffin.
He tells his northern hemisphere readers that the “clever black and white striped bird has a beak that is as sharply honed as a letter opener”.
“One theory goes that it can remember which humans have been hostile to it in the past and so it attacks them,” he writes. “Spring is a particularly scary time … because it is the breeding season.”
A flock of magpies reside at the ambassador’s residence in Yarralumla and come looking for food, “and cast longing looks in our direction”, writes Ambassador Shingo, whose predecessor fed the birds. He says this was “a blind spot” that wasn’t touched upon in the handover documentation before he arrived in December.
The ambassador suggests the formidable magpie should be added to the Australian coast of arms. “If the kangaroo and emu are protectors of the land, then taking this imagery further, the protector of the sea would be the shark while the protector of the air would probably be the magpie, wouldn’t it?” he writes.
Although the blog post was intended to be light-hearted, the envoy referenced the tragic death of a five-month-old baby in Brisbane last month after her mother stumbled while trying to dodge a swooping magpie.
Ambassador Shingo, of course, is not alone with his problems with magpies. Magpie swooping and attack is well known to Australians at a time of the year when magpies are rearing young and defending territories against supposed threats.
The Tasmanian sub-species of magpie is reputed to be less aggressive than mainland forms but evidence from Howrah on the Eastern Shore suggests otherwise. There, an aggressive magpie is well known to local residents, swooping on pedestrians and cyclists on Clarence Street over the years.
Following the baby’s death instructions were issued across Australia on how to avoid magpie attack. Beyond avoiding magpie territories – not always possible – the best advice is to wear sunglasses, wide-brimmed hat, or even a cycle helmet. I’m told it helps to have a face painted on the helmet.
Ambassador Shingo, meanwhile, has dispensed with the diplomatic niceties regarding his own problem magpies. He is now denying them the food his predecessor put out for them – a coup de grace without a shot being fired.