{"id":142914,"date":"2025-09-14T16:03:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T16:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/142914\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T16:03:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T16:03:14","slug":"how-to-protect-yourself-in-brisbanes-magpie-swooping-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/142914\/","title":{"rendered":"How to protect yourself in Brisbane\u2019s magpie swooping season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cHe usually doesn\u2019t follow you down the road,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Some birds, such as magpies and butcherbirds, get defensive during breeding season, which runs from July to January and peaks in September and October.<\/p>\n<p>Loading<\/p>\n<p>Magpie expert Emeritus Professor Darryl Jones, a behavioural ecologist, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.brisbanetimes.com.au\/link\/follow-20170101-p5mse8\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">last week told this masthead<\/a> swooping magpies were, without exception, male.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of his many jobs is to keep predators away from the nest,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe reason for magpies to swoop people is for some reason, they\u2019re treating people as predators. So they treat us exactly like they would a snake or a dingo or a goanna that\u2019s climbing up to the nest.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Only about 10 per cent of male magpies swoop, and the most targeted group were cyclists, often because they were coming fast, which was a \u201cthreat in itself\u201d, BirdLife Australia senior adviser Sean Dooley said.<\/p>\n<p>Since July 1, the council has been contacted 87 times about swooping birds.<\/p>\n<p>Over the 12 months, New Farm had the top number of reports, followed by Brighton, Forest Lake, Everton Park, Bald Hills and Coorparoo.<\/p>\n<p>According to website <a href=\"https:\/\/www.magpiealert.com\/Top10AngryBirds_2024.php\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Magpie Alert<\/a>, Queensland seems to have among the most defensive birds in the country, leading to the most injuries, with 14 per cent of swoops resulting in injuries.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, a particularly vicious and persistent bird was reported on the Gateway north bikeway at Banyo, with people reporting it targeted cyclists\u2019 ears, with five injuries from 14 swoops.<\/p>\n<p>More than 41 birds were relocated in Brisbane in the past financial year.<\/p>\n<p>Tips to avoid swooping birds include avoiding known areas, travelling in a group, not running as it can encourage a bird to continue to attack, wearing a hat or using an umbrella, and wearing sunglasses to protect eyes.<\/p>\n<p>Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner said the city\u2019s biodiversity was a big part of what made it special.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf residents witness a swooping bird, please let council know so we can monitor the bird and install signage to warn other residents.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cHe usually doesn\u2019t follow you down the road,\u201d he said. Some birds, such as magpies and butcherbirds, get&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,338],"class_list":{"0":"post-142914","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}