Is his Dad teaching his son a valuable life lesson by terrorizing him with evil magpies? Maybe.
A hilarious or concerning video, depending on if you’re a parent, popped up on social media earlier today (Sept. 28,2020) showing the heart-pounding moment a young boy, riding his scooter, is attacked by a magpie from above. The magpie can be seen pecking at the boy’s helmet as he screams his little lungs out, understandably so. After a bit of digging, turns out the person filming is his boy’s father, he’s doing this on purpose, and, from the looks of his recent posts, it might work?
Check out the video for yourself below.
In the video we see a young boy in Lake Illawarra, New South Wales, riding along a downhill suburban sidewalk. With no trees or foliage providing shade, pedestrians are open to magpie attacks from above.
The Dad is fully aware there’s an angry magpie lurking nearby and, as far as I can tell, he’s training his son to become battle-hardened against these literal angry birds.
The Australian Magpie, not to be confused with the European or N.American Magpies (which are actually Corvids,) are notorious to humans for their territorial behaviour, particularly the males during breeding season running from August to Late-October.
Australians know to avoid certain areas where Magpies frequent as their angry attacks have been known to blind kids not strong or quick enough to fend off their black-billed pecks.
But some parents, like this Dad, take a risky unorthodox approach. Magpies are smart birds and, overtime, recognize friends from foes. Perhaps this stretch of sidewalk is unavoidable and his son will have to take this route to get home or to school. By acclimating the birds to his son’s scooter-riding figure, I reckon he’s conditioning the birds to accept his son as a non-threat.
Again, it’s risky, and he’s risking his son’s eyes getting injured.
Then again, maybe his Dad’s grown up in this area and knows this to be a tried-and-true technique.
His Dad’s snapped a couple of stills of his son riding on his bike, simultaneously being attacked from above. He seems to be, dare I say, enjoying himself?
“This is called conquering my kids demons”
If it’s a strategy that works for the two, I see nothing wrong with it.
His kid seems to be the adventurous type, anyway, up for a bit of risky activity.
Eye-pecking dangers aside, there’s a life lesson somewhere here. Some risks in life are unavoidable and you’re going to have to face them or live with the fear.
I know I’ve had dogs run up to me, barking, on some of my favorite running routes. I know, like those magpies, they’re territorial and, if I ignore them confidently, they’ll sulk away after a couple of yards. I haven’t changed my routes and those dogs don’t run up to me anymore.
Kudos to this Dad, he’s raising one heck of a kid.
