Magpie Attacks

Greenboy

I had one draw blood from my left ear - got beneath the helmet - it was so painful I thought I hit a tree branch (then he got me for a second and a third time) - near the Newmarket pool in Briabane.

jur

The fake eyes helped, but not as much as I hoped. I thought they would pretty much stop the bird short, but it still swooped but at least no longer touched. Those eyes were pretty dorky, I will make them into smallish balls on the end of small stalks, like little martian antennae.

SEGFTG

I went out for a couple of hours yesterday with my new eyes... I think they did the trick as I had no swoops at all. I used some shiny black and silver stickers cut out about the size of a 50c piece and put a small circle of red in the middle, look pretty evil and highly visible. Hope that might be the end of my troubles

flipper

LOL! I was thinking exactly the same thing

I tried stick on eyes yesterday but I think because it's hard to get them to really stand out, they didn't work. I got swooped 6 times by one between Eltham and Diamond Creek then again in Nutfield.
SEGFTG's sound good, might have to raid the kids' sticker books for something a little more reflective.

Roll on November.

__________________
"I think the only rule is that if someone is a big fat bastard its fairly safe to assume they aren't going to be pwning anyone on a climb" ~ classic1

rayTerrace

There's a butcher bird that has a go at me - there's always a warning cry & then he clips my helmet. The bird is only active on a short section of street so I've started going around the block.

I regularly ride along the cooks river cycleway out to homebush & olympic park (Sydney NSW) - haven't had any encounters with magpies. From what I've read on this forum I'm lucky.

a5hi5m

Went out yesterday did my first 100k's, managed to meet this fine fellow .. my first magpie swoop(s). Thanks for the heads up though .. I didnt pay heaps of attention to the exact location, but when it came i was thinking "Ahh .. so this is where they were talking about"

otherworld

Try sticking or mounting some sort of image of a face on top of your helmet - preferably one with big eyes and an agro look. We used to do this as kids.... In the days before helmets we would draw one on the bottom of an ice cream container and put that on our heads.

Good Luck Jay.

jur

Yeah I've been wondering about this; in present day times there are not all that many pedestrians, while cars are too fast and perhaps too big anyway. So guess who cops it all.

Magpie swooping season is from July to November; but individual ones are active for a few weeks while the chicks are small.

jur

I've justbeen looking over some stats and it's worse than I realised. Cyclists get attacked the most (see previous post for possible explanation), and many cases reported have fallen and sustained a fractured limb.

Also, eyes are targeted in numerous cases, suggesting putting eyes on your helmet may have the opposite effect.

On bikeforums someone suggested that the extra little antennae confuses the bird,not actually touching as a result.

SteveWoll

I wondered if helmet colour makes a difference. I went through the one spot 4 times recently with various other riders, and the maggie picked on me each time. (Made it easy for everybody else!). I thought it might be the blue/ silver helmet, but everyone else said it was the "safety yellow" cycle shirt...

By the way, the 50km/hr idea is true. The other favorite spot I get bombed I lose him when I get up speed. It is just a pity it is on the top of a hill, and so there is still plenty of time to get hit all the same.

jur

I also have a fluoro yellow shirt and get swooped.

johnv

On my ride to work this morning I saw a woman with 3 cable ties sticking up from her helmet. Looked a bit like my favorite martian. Didn't have chance to ask if they stop magpies. They might stop them hitiing you.

jur

Cable ties! Why didn't I think of that?

<goes off to nick some cable ties from the production area>

62vette

Thankfully magpies are an introduced species (and considered vermin) here in NZ, so a call to your local regional council will send out a pest control officer to nail the little buggers with a shottie. We have had a group of very aggressive magpies up one rural road near where I live that have been dispatched this year. They were attacking on a long climb out of a gully, so you got hit in both directions - grrrrr!