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In New Zealand I used to get attacked regularly by magpies, a large and aggressive crow-like bird, while riding my bike near trees where they were presumably ne

In New Zealand I used to get attacked regularly by magpies, a large and aggressive crow-like bird, while riding my bike near trees where they were presumably nesting. They'd come at you from behind and swoop at your head, either passing very close to scare you, or even clawing at my helmet as they passed. Very frightening if you're not expecting it! Apparently on some occasions people would get attacked seriously enough to draw blood. The weird thing is that as soon as you got off your bike and pushed it, they'd be scared off and wouldn't come near you. But something about bike riding seemed to drive them insane...

MDib 8y ago
Fascinating, the first time I heard about this phenomenon is when this amusing video [1] was doing the rounds. Apparently it's a seasonal issue largely linked to them being particularly aggressive in their defence of newly-hatched broods. What's weird though is that in certain magpie-swooping zones, the swooping is selective [2]. It seems quite accepted that corvids can recognise faces and otherwise identify individual humans, but what makes it single out people that haven't attacked it is a real mystery. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGGTcYfrEZU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGGTcYfrEZU [2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/28/when-magpies-attack-the-swooping-dive-bombing-menace-and-how-to-avoid-them https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/28/when-mag...