Magpie Season
I am still on about birds. I really love them, waking up in the morning, hearing the tinkling tones of their morning song is just so pleasurable. The chirp chirp chirp as they go about their business is just a lovely way to start the day.
In Australia we are just so lucky to have the amount we do, even in suburbia, there is a great variety.
Which leads nicely into what I was planning to say, some birds just aren’t that nice. We’re talking Bush Turkey’s (anyone who lies in a Bush Turkey plague area knows exactly what I mean), we’re talking Top Knot Pigeons. Not that they aren’t nice, it’s just that they are so stupid, just ask Genevive the cat. I’ve got two words for you, “sitting ducks”, and we’re talking Magpies
Walking this morning in another part of town, I see a Magpie warning sign hammered into the ground ( Where were the signs when I was nine I ask). Magpie breeding season, a time of terror, a time to be scared, a time when it would be really good to own a heavy duty sling shot but you know deep down you would never be able to hit the thing anyway.
Don’t get me wrong most of the time I just love to see Magpies hopping around, warbling on a fence or washing themselves in a puddle. However, another few metres and I see a convoy of kids on bikes weaving their way along the path on the other side of the road. Suddenly the whole bunch erupts into a series of high pitched squeals and I see a Kamikaze Magpie dive bombing them from on high, aiming for any exposed skin it could find. The memories came flooding back, the stupid running with your hands waving above your head. The sharp stab of its beak as broke the skin on the top of your scalp The cuts and bruises when you fall of your bike because the bird was chasing you and it tries to scalp you as you lie on the ground crying (yes I have trauma, I may need therapy).
What is the answer, who knows, but every year another batch of kids are subjected to a childhood right of passage that is Magpie mating season.
Zesty Mumma's Words 