There are a lot of things to love about Spring, but being swooped by protective birds is not one of them. Each year, around this time, we are under constant attack at several of our body corporate properties as we go about our cleaning and gardening work.
Magpies are well known for their swooping habits and at one property in Toowong there is a nasty magpie that likes to hover overhead and swoop us while we are mowing. However we have found that butcher birds are sneakier and more aggressive than magpies!
Despite being much smaller than magpies, butcher birds are very skilled at working in groups to terrorise passers by. They attack from numerous perches around their nests and when you are watching them they appear to feign disinterest in targeting you (until you turn your back of course). There is even one butcher bird that attacks people on the roof terrace of a four-storey body corporate complex at Clontarf that we look after.
We’ve tried a number of strategies to try and deter these birds from attacking us and the only thing that has worked consistently is wearing bright yellow wet floor signs on our heads. They look ridiculous, but there is something about the colour or shape of the signs that the butcher birds don’t seem to like.
To find out more about how to live with angry swooping birds click on the link below.