Tasmanians have a reputation for being laid-back and friendly – and the same goes for our magpies.
Although the national press at this time of year is always full of magpie attack stories and advice on how to counter aggressive birds, it’s a phenomenon largely absent from Tasmania.
There’s no doubt magpies prove a serious problem on the mainland, from swooping posties on their rounds, to terrorising schoolchildren on their way to school.
There’s plenty of advice in the press and on social media on how to avoid or at least mitigate magpie attack. Wear a bike helmet or a large wide-brimmed hat is the most common one. With helmets some people attach cable ties to them, or even paint a face on it with large eyes. The latter seems to work.
The best advice, though, is to steer clear of areas where magpies are nesting during the crucial breeding season. The aggressive behaviour generally occurs from September to December when magpies defend nesting sites from suspected intruders. It just so happens these locations can be in suburban areas – where magpies are common – but swooping season mostly only runs over a four-week period while the female sits on the nest and the male defends their new brood, most often during October and early November.
The latest research I can find on magpie aggression dates back five years and it throws up a surprising statistic. Out of about 3000 reported attacks throughout the country in 2019, only one was from Tasmania.
Tasmanian ornithologist Eric Woehler said at the time that reasons for this were unknown but it could simply be that magpies were a ‘bit more chilled down here”.
It could also be they appear less stressed because they don’t breed as close to people in Tasmania, where there is far more open, wild space for them to nest, such as on the Queens Domain where people and the birds can keep their distance. There’s also the possibility the magpies that first came to the island did not have aggressive genes.
Animal behaviour expert Gisela Kaplan says the key to harmonious human-magpie relations lies in learning magpie rules of engagement. People make the mistake of arming themselves with an umbrella or stick which will only rile the magpie into action.
In her book Australian Magpie: Biology and Behaviour of an Unusual Songbird, she says disputes between magpies are resolved by “totally peaceful” negotiations and displays held on the border of two clans – that is to say, by “diplomatic solutions”.
“I wish the world could learn from magpies,” she writes.
Of the lone Tasmania attack in 2019 the location was not given but I think I know the culprit. My only attack in the state was by a particularly aggressive magpie that ruled the roost for a number of years along Clarence St, in Howrah.