i'd suggest a much easier metric is how people vote. We can see from the polling results >80% are enablers of this evil. We get this info reliably every election, state or federal

The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing

And we can finally quantify by how much Evil is winning.

OG Magpies are corvids, but they’re like the biker gang of the corvid world. They do the whole CSI thing when one of them dies, and they’ll absolutely attack any threat as a group. One time my chad cat got one in his mouth somehow and ran around and its compatriots went berserk - they also never forget a face.

They’re famous for stealing stuff but all crows do that afaik.

I looked through various sources but did not keep notes because it was just a little article for a local paper and I can't remember. I've written to the Qld Museum 'Ask an expert' (great service). They reply within one month. I'll do a new post when they reply..

Happy news!

Nice. I recently was talking to about about how common these things use to be, before we crashed their population. Apparently they've found some new places to regrow their population that aren't as trashed.

AWESOME! It's been so long since I've seen a Bogong in Melbourne.

Coming out of a particular closet, are you mate?

Go ahead, expose your monumental ignorance and superstition.

I remember being swooped when I was young - but with the benefit of hindsight I can think of things that I was doing that could provoke the swooping. In my adult life, I've never been swooped; and I am still going to 'high risk' areas, and I commute by bike daily. So... perhaps it's just luck, but I reckon a big part of it is being familiar and predictable. Magpies definitely do recognise people that they know, and so my best guess is that if I'm on my regular routes then there won't be any swooping.

As a side note. Various other countries have birds that they call magpies, and so some of what people say to each other about magpies actually refers to birds different to ours (especially true for characters in books talking about magpies). And one interesting thing I've heard (which I believe) is that Australian magpies are the only ones that sing. They have quite a distinctive and attractive singing voice, whereas the magpies of other countries just squawk - so I'm told.

It's certainly not impossible that I'm wrong about the impact on the maggies. I first heard it when watching the Brisbane City Council meeting immediately after a baby was killed by one of these birds. A human baby. And that's precisely why I don't actually care if I am wrong. It being neutral or positive for the birds themselves certainly makes it an easier sell, but I strongly believe it would be the right thing to do regardless. Because babies being murdered and other people being violently assaulted is not something we should just have to put up with for 4 months every year.

I'm curious what your sources were for what you wrote. Both the quotes from Zagorath go back to research from the turn of the millennium, which was mainly focused on the effectiveness at reducing swooping, rather than the wellbeing of the birds.

I'll do some more research and get back to you. What I wrote was from fairly recent information but I am happy to be corrected if the the alternative is up to date and verified.

Useless fucking advice when 90% of our bikeways are along tree-lined parks and other places magpies are likely to be, and a vanishingly small number of safe routes are available as alternatives. Not to mention that you don’t know where the magpies that swoop are until after you’ve already been fucking swooped.

YUP! once walked across and empty field. I will correct...once walked halfway across an empty field and ran frantically through the other half whilst under attack. Not a tree in sight so why suspect you might be safe.

I also had a friend whose garden magpies figured the door flap and the dogs food. They would pop in the house and fight the dog...and occasionally my friend. This likely sounds crazy to the rest of the world.

Yeh they make themselves pretty well known. You only need to be swooped once to learn a lesson for life.

I'm sorry, but every time someone complains about getting swooped some well-meaning but ignorant person comes in with the exact same fucking advice. It's fucking exhausting. It's just completely impractical. Introduce yourself? What, to every magpie within a 20 kilometre radius? Just in case you need to travel within a 200 metre radius of its nest when it happens to be swooping? Surely you can see how fucking stupid that is, right? It's infuriating to be told that same advice every time. It comes across as incredibly patronising, but at least patronising advice usually has some merit.

Because of the importance of territory to us, we should NOT be moved elsewhere. Those that are captured and relocated will be killed or badly injured by magpies already living in the new area. To make matters worse, eggs and chicks will fail to survive without their parents. Relocation won’t solve your ‘problem’. A new magpie will take the place of the one you relocated and the swooping will start all over again. If the dominant male is removed from the territory then the whole flock may become vulnerable and threatened with displacement

Sorry but this is completely wrong.

the magpie itself benefits from the translocation. If they’re attacking, they’re usually stressed and need more space

when you take away the male within a very short time the bachelor birds outside of the territory will make a claim on the female and chicks and will look after the young better than the original male

As for the rest of this...

Avoid areas that are being defended

Useless fucking advice when 90% of our bikeways are along tree-lined parks and other places magpies are likely to be, and a vanishingly small number of safe routes are available as alternatives. Not to mention that you don't know where the magpies that swoop are until after you've already been fucking swooped.

Look, magpies are absolutely gorgeous birds when they're not swooping. But people should have the right to go about their regular business within the bounds of a city without the serious risk of injury or death. It's not reasonable to expect cohabitation with violent beings prone to assault. Everything I've heard suggests only a small percentage of maggies swoop people. That small percentage should be relocated where they aren't causing harm.

Yay, excellent!

Lucky for us (despite their swooping) they make our suburbs and regions sound Australian.

I actually knew this species. 😃

The cost in dollars doesn't matter.

The cost in carbon is what matters.

Progress has been slow going on the project, particularly in the tunnel-boring department, and particularly for a particular tunnel-boring machine called Florence, which first got bogged in ground that was too soft and then became wedged in rock that was too hard.

So it got stuck between a rock and a soft place?

,,

Yeah, absolutely its a problem. All the issues they said at the start of the project have borne out and then more with these unexpected soil issues. I suppose if I were the government in this situation I'd be looking at this as a major works project that may pay off as a grid stabilising mechanism, but has also created a unique workforce 5000 strong. I'd be looking towards what national benefit/s this workforce could be turned to next. Of course I say this knowing Snowy is a unique project, but there'd be crossover with other unique underground tunneling projects or water resource projects. Something that springs to mind is high speed rail underneath the Blue Mountains might have demand for an insane amount of tunneling. I don't know how realistic any of that is though.

They are gorgeous but their ma and pa are a bit bonkers.

On the conservation side though it's a great opportunity to show children because they're on the ground and can see the babies growing up.

I hope my pessimistic mind is wrong and snowy 2.0 ends up being worth it. I have toured Tumut 3 and it's an amazing work of engineering with decent cost benefits when you look back at it over 50+ years. But even inflation adjusted 2.0 has been ludicrously expensive, and with the progression of solar and batteries I'm doubtful it will ever come close to breaking even.

It has currently cost more than the entire rest of the snowy project ($8-9 billion approx).

There's a masked lapwing wing near me that has found the perfect nesting spot in the middle of an electrical sub-station. The chick is very cute - fluff ball on legs.