Archers to the ready

Magpies, the root of all evil

 

Alright everyone. As you are all aware September is upon us. Spring has unleashed hell and parks everywhere are under threat from the Magpie Menace. 

As one of those crazy people who are terrified of birds at the best of times, September is a particularly unpleasant month for me.

They're on to us... RUN FOR YOUR LIVES

This is possibly stemmed from early childhood memories of being forced to parade about the place wearing an ice-cream bucket on my head with eyes painted on the top to keep the black and white beasties at bay.  School play-time rules changed from No Hat No Play to No Ice-Cream Bucket No Play. Tag is so much more fun when your being chased by whoever is it and being bomb dived by the resident Mummy Magpie as well.

 

Mumsy, bless er heart used to buy us safe passage from the magpies who lived in a gum tree in our front yard by leaving dried dog food on the veranda railing all year. That worked a treat untill the boy down the road decided to use their nest for target practice one year with his new sling-shot. The cease-fire was over. Bloody battle ensued. 

The hero in this sorry tale is my brother Ickle. He used to hide in ambush with this knobbly piece of a tree and wait for one to swoop him. He would then leap from the shrubbery with an awful cry and clobber the bird on the head. 

When he wasn’t doing this, he would ride about on his bike wearing a re-enforced bike helmet. He would scope out where the magpies were swooping and then ride about in the late afternoon. He would stand up on his peddles, crouch his head down into the handlebars and when the magpie was flying over head, he would swing his head up and using his helmet like war hammer he would knock the bird out cold. The bird would recover after a minute or so and stumble drunkenly off the road before they can see straight enough to fly so no permanent damage was done. I do suspect that there is a price on Ickle’s head. I tend to avoid him in September. 

All our technology and this is the best we could come up with?

 

Everywhere people are fixing zip ties all over their bicycle helmets in a freakish looking attempt to ward off magpie attacks. Dog walkers all over Brisbane have branches that they walk around with, hoping that the birds will mistake them for walking trees with pet dogs and not go for the kill shot. While these methods may seem adequate in protecting people from this epidemic. I think more drastic measures need to be put in place. 

I would like to see Magpie Patrols all over the greater Brisbane area. People should be able to hire an armed guard to protect them from this menace. The government should hand out helmets with rear view mirror attached. For a small fee you should be able to have a missile launcher installed with sights and in Magpie problem areas giant clear fly paper should be stuck up to catch them mid-flight. 

Say hello to my little friend

 

Also everyone should be given a Nerf Gun. Just because I really really want one. Plus I would like to see any birds come at me while I lie in wait with one of those. 

So dear readers. Stay safe this Swooping Season and if there happens to be any animal right activists who have stumbled across my blog and have been offended by anything that I have written, please email me and let me know. I might want to offend you again later.