Yesterday, a video of a young boy being relentlessly tormented by a swooping magpie as he screamed in terror went viral after the traumatised child’s dad filmed the entire traumatic (yet hilarious) encounter.
Wayne Sherwood, posted the video of his son Max riding a scooter on the sidewalk in Lake Illawarra, an hour and a half south of Sydney, while a magpie repeatedly attacked his head as he screamed while flying at full speed down the street.
“Australia is beautiful but our native birds are killers,” Sherwood posted on Instagram on Monday.
“They’ll eat your kids alive. Beware hahaha ?. Watch how we conquer this horrible experience in part 2/3.”
And while we all had a big ol’ laugh at Max’s unfortunate run-in with the angry Maggie, Australians are all too familiar with that look of unbridled terror in the young boy’s eyes, as we, too, have all been the victims of a pissed off magpie at some point in our lives.
In what some Twitter users have dubbed as a “rite of passage,” the beginning of springtime Down Under not only means the weather is warming up, it also means that it’s officialy Magpie swooping season – and these swoopy boiz do not fuck around.
“Man, I have soo many memories from my teenage years that involve some variation of exactly this scene,” one Twitter user said in reply to Max’s ordeal, as another added:
“This is every Aussie child’s experience, every Spring. Magpies are truly vicious when nesting. They especially love to attack kids passing by on bikes and scooters. Riding a bike to school was a nightmare. Lots of people will stick spikey things to the tops of their helmets.”
“This really is a universal childhood experience for Australians. If you weren’t in an area to get swooped by magpies, you got swooped by masked plovers instead. We used to paint eyes on the back of our school hats and bike helmets,” another confirmed of the annual terror we Australians experience.
Along with helmets, every year we see many Aussies get creative with their Magpie-deflecting headwear, with designs ranging from the childhood classic – an ice cream bucket with eyes drawn on top – to more elaborate pieces featuring cable ties and sticks.
It's Magpie swooping season and this Canberra cyclist was spotted wearing protective headwear. Magpie attacks HURT! pic.twitter.com/nnMLpGnN
— Le merle lointain (@merl04) September 4, 2012
The terror is real, my friends, for Magpie season is well and truly here.
If you want to avoid angry Maggies that may be currently swooping your streets, you can suss out your area on Magpie Alert.
Good luck!
