gullybogan

Magpie season Monday 100927~17:00

Posted by gullybogan in Gaia, Spring.
Tags: magpies, nature
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Dear fellow beleaguered pedestrian,

As you are well aware, it is currently Springtime here in the Dandenongs.

Not just here, of course, but i can only speak for myself. “Write what you know,” so the great mantra in every bad/lazy creative writing manual goes. “That should leave you with a lot of free time,” rejoinders Dead Poet Howard Nemerov.

So, with so much free time on my hands, i thought i’d commiserate with you on the current fusillade of magpies raining down upon our heads.

Every year, about this time, the newspapers run cautionary tales about the magpies. Be on the look-out, they warn: watch the skies.

Cyclists take to wearing adorable adornments on their helmets. The latest fashion is to take two or three hundred ziplocks and festoon them echidna-like over the entire surface of the brainbucket.

Sophisticated.

Princess is a little terrified of the black and white ballistic brutes. This is particularly ironic considering the fact that she is a Collingwood supporter.

[Don't get me started on the draw, OK? Just don't.]

Thing is, but, i can bring some succour to those of you who are, like Princess, living in mortal fear of the sound of wings.

See, there’s actually only one swooping magpie in the whole of Melbourne.

The local paper ran a story on it, as did the City Little Paper and the City Big Paper.

All three articles were on the same magpie. This one here, in the picture.

I heard a story (not from the media, but from the real world) of a friend of a friend who was riding a bike when a magpie landed on their foolhardily-ziplock-free helmet, reached around, and pecked them on the cheek.

Not a sweet-and-friendly, i’m-home-from-the-shops-dear type of peck, but a get-away-from-my-nestlings, draw-blood type of peck.

Where was the attack, i asked, with my most sympathetic voice.

Over on Scoresby Road, came the reply.

That’s it. That’s the magpie.

So, if you don’t want to be magpecked, stay the golly away from Scoresby Road.

You have been warned: watch the skies, but only over Scoresby Road.

Yours reassuringly,
Gullybogan

[Gully, you're an idiot. There's about a million magpies out there, and the problem is so bad that there's now a Google map giving the sightings - Ed]

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