Spring in Melbourne is heralded by a sense of relief \u2013 the aching cold slowly swapped for temperatures in the double digits, the grey gloom juxtaposed by the sudden blooming of wattle and other brilliant blossoms, and my seasonal depression alleviated by the beautiful sight of cyclists wearing helmets covered in gently waving and unfortunately ridiculous plastic tentacles.<\/p>\n
Considering cyclists choose to wear Lycra in public, it\u2019s clear they already have a rock-hard sense of confidence and a shaky relationship with dignity \u2013 but newcomers to our country surely have to wonder what could possibly possess them to cover their hats in brightly coloured and lethal-looking spikes, like an unholy union between the Wiggles and a Mad Max movie.<\/p>\n
But the answer is simple: the aerial malice of the magpie swooping season.<\/p>\n
That cursed stretch of spring weeks in which the mantle of Australia\u2019s most dangerous fauna switches from our ground-crawling spiders and snakes, or our aquatic sharks and crocodiles, to the terrifying monarch of the skies: the magpie.<\/p>\n
Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads<\/a><\/p>\n Swooping season is no joke \u2013 I\u2019ve known people who have almost lost eyes from a territorial bird, who have turned up to park picnics bewildered and bleeding from the scalp. Around the Merri Creek near me, there are signs on all the paths warning of swooping magpies in the area, people scurrying through the danger zones, hunched and with their eyes to the sky, like miniature raptures might descend at any moment and spirit them away.<\/p>\n Which is why a lot of people get confused when I tell them I utterly adore magpies. I love their monochromatic beauty (so classy when compared with the crass Gorman aesthetic of the rainbow lorikeet and its ilk), I adore the sound of their warble as I wander the streets at dusk, and above all I love their commitment to revenge.<\/p>\n Years ago I even got a magpie tattoo on my arm, as a tribute to the beauty and spite of the magpie \u2013 which was a trying time for my Sydney Swans-obsessed family, who thought I\u2019d suddenly left my AFL agnosticism and declared for Collingwood (who they hate passionately).<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Five Great Reads<\/p>\n Each week our editors select five of the most interesting, entertaining and thoughtful reads published by Guardian Australia and our international colleagues. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Saturday morning<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Patrick Lenton\u2019s magpie tattoo<\/p>\n I love magpies because they are not actually randomly violent \u2013 research has proved they remember people and actually hold grudges<\/a> against those who have done them wrong, which I find incredibly relatable. I too remember people, and hold grudges.<\/p>\n A retired man on a street I used to live on would chase them out of his garden every day and spray them with a hose \u2013 and as a result, during swooping season would live a harried life, hostage in his own house, as I watched him scurry from his front door to his car, swooped incessantly by committed and spiteful magpies.<\/p>\n Once, in high school, I watched a magpie single out a bully I disliked and drive him away from the lunchtime nirvana of the handball courts.<\/p>\n I see a lot of myself in magpies.<\/p>\n But I have spent the last few years of my life living as a kind of diplomat, trying to broker peace between the mighty nation of magpies during swooping season and the gorgeous yet gormless greyhound community. Basil, my greyhound,<\/a> is very interested in birds, and thinks he might like to chase them \u2013 which the magpies regretfully see as a declaration of war. In order to broker some kind of truce, I spend the rest of the year attempting to make friends with magpies, which has also impacted my own relationship with dignity. Now I\u2019m the guy walking his dog around the suburban streets of Melbourne, throwing tiny handfuls of cooked chicken into the sky to appease my winged friends, leaving little offerings of crickets in piles (which I was told was better for wild birds than the chicken), taking the time to say \u201cgood morning\u201d to every magpie I see, and loudly admiring their beautiful songs.<\/p>\n A few streets down from me, an older lady saw me saying hello to a magpie on her fence, and she came out to have a chat. Now, every so often I\u2019ll walk past and she\u2019ll call out to give me lemons or sprigs of rosemary from her garden. I can only imagine that if I hadn\u2019t been polite to her, much like a magpie, she would have remembered my face and withheld lemons as part of her grudge.<\/p>\n Not only is there a lesson about community here (who knows how many conflicts could be avoided if I threw handfuls of insects at my unfriendly neighbour who hates my dog?) but there is also something rewarding about making friends with an animal who has the capacity to truly maim you if you get on their bad side. Makes you realise you\u2019ve made some good choices in life, makes you feel as though you\u2019ve earned the right to stroll the streets and listen to the magpies singing as the sun goes down.<\/p>\n