Australia: we have the top 4 most deadly venoms, the worst snakes and spiders, PLUS crocs and sharks — but what you really have to fear are the BIRDS!

IEEEEE! Sept 1st marked the onset of spring and I received a terrible reminder! Be careful which paths you take– UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you take a walk around/through/across a big-treed green park in spring!

What is with Australia’s birds?

Magpies'll swoop you everytime!

It’s like the birds here have never known real terrors like bears and coyotes-instead they attack the very audience who come to admire them most: humans! (I mean, “bird watching” has to be the epitomical human height of civilised activity, yet the birds “swoop” at us!)

Everyday, on my way to the train station during Sept-Nov I have to change my usual path to work. My friend was bleeding on the top of his head from an out struck magpie claw!

Feral 'Myna' Bird

Crazy bird! What do you think we want with your eggs?! I don’t want your eggs! I just want to go for a run in the park!

(I’m starting to want someone to squash all your eggs and shoot you with a BB gun because everytime I walk this path you and that horrible minor bird (“myna” bird in the Australian accent) swoop down and crack your wings at me.)

Pity you are so well protected. (Maybe you swoop at me because you sense my inner distrust.)

Well, ‘screw you’, Bird and your close wing-cracking ways that flick the hair at the base of my neck and make me and fellow passerbys crouch with fear as we try to walk within 30 feet of your nest.

You can win this time, Bird! I know another street I can walk up.

Everyone else: consider yourself warned!