Today Marks The First Day Of Spring Which Means It's Officially Magpie Season

Ladies and gentlemen of Australia, we've officially shed our winter skin and everyone can get ready for Spring.

While it doesn't have the same party attitude as Summer, Spring is where we finally get to start feeling warmer, the days are longer and everything starts to bloom.

But the one thing that many of us fear around this time is the scary AF magpie.

While their mating season isn't as strict as September 1 to November 30, it's usually around this time that they start rooting and getting all protective about their territory.

National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) manager Sue Walker told the Northern Star: "They swoop because they are protective of their nest and young - any perceived threat can cause some magpies to become aggressive.

"While it can be very frightening, these magpies are usually just warning and generally only defend within 100m of their nest site. Magpies are a protected species and it is an offence to harm them."

Anyone who wants to walk along their normal route could be swooped by one of these black and white birds without a second's notice. But it's not just one nip at the head; you could be attacked several times as you pass through an area that a magpie deems it's turf.

Matt Stacy

Researchers reckon only around nine per cent of magpies swoop during the peak season and they're almost always males.

According to the Royal Zoological Society of NSW, 'smaller - especially younger - people, lone people, and people travelling quickly (i.e., runners and cyclists) appear to be targeted most often by swooping magpies.'

Now, there are various strategies that people have posited over the years as a way to avoid being swooped. Some work and some definitely don't.

Trent Nicholson

Some people claim you're supposed to wear an ice-cream bucket with sticks or googley eyes on the back to ward off the swoopers but that only works in some cases.

People who are in the firing line so to speak are told to either avoid the area, be aware of where the bird is because it'll usually swoop from behind, walk don't run because they'll perceive that as a threat, dismount from your bike or horse because apparently they're threatening, and never harass them.

So you've now been officially warned to be on the look out for these bad boys because they will leave you with a nasty wound if you're not careful.

Topics: Community, Animals, Australia

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie is a Trending Journalist at LADbible. His first job was as a newsreader and journalist at the award winning Sydney radio station, Macquarie Radio. He was solely responsible for the content broadcast on multiple stations across Australia when the MH17, Germanwings and AirAsia disasters unfolded. Stewart has covered the conflict in Syria for LADbible, interviewing a doctor on the front line, and has contributed to the hugely successful UOKM8 campaign.

@stewartperrie