An Australian family is mourning the loss of a five-month-old girl who died after her mother tried to protect her from a swooping magpie.
Baby Mia was in her mother's arms when a magpie swooped at them in Brisbane's Glindemann Park on Sunday, causing her mother to trip and fall. Mia was rushed to hospital but later died from injuries sustained in the fall, according to the Queensland Ambulance Service.
"The parents and bystanders did a really fantastic job, they got us coming really quickly and allowed the little one to have the best possible chance," Tom Holland, a paramedic who attended the scene, said in a press conference.
"Even as paramedics this is an incredibly rare and tragic event to get called to," Holland said. "It was a very emotive scene, my thoughts are with the parents."
Relatives have launched a fund raising campaign to raise money to help cover Mia's funeral costs and to assist her parents, identified only by their first names Jacob and Simone.
"On this day, in Glendemann Park, Holland Park West an absolute tragic and sudden accident occurred, where beautiful Mia, at only five young months of age, grew her little angel wings and left this world for the final time," the fund raising page reads. "No words can begin to describe the torture [parents] Jacob and Simone are going through."
In a social media post on Tuesday Brisbane's Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner described the city as being "shocked to its absolute core" by the infant's death. "Let's come together as a community and let Jacob and Simone know Brisbane is here for them," he added.
Magpies are known for aggressively defending their nests, particularly during breeding season which runs July-December in Brisbane.
That aggression has earned magpies a fearsome reputation in Australia, where the sharp-beaked black and white bird grows to around 40 centimeters (15 inches) long.
The community-run Magpie Alert website logged 1,231 magpie swoops in the state of Queensland in 2020, with thousands more reported across the rest of Australia.
More than one in ten people swooped by magpies suffer injuries, according to Magpie Alert.
In 2019 a 76-year-old Sydney man died of head injuries after crashing his bicycle while attempting to avoid a swooping magpie. The previous year, child in Perth was almost blinded when a magpie attacked his face as he sat in his pram.
Brisbane City Council says it is "working towards a natural balance as the guiding management principle," when it comes to aggressive birds such as the native magpie.
Magpies are a protected species in Australia, where it is illegal to kill the bird or remove its chicks or eggs from the wild.
Jean Michel Yeah, completely agree. I love magpies, their warbling is the sound of sunrise in Australia. That said, I always say "Hello Maggie" everytime I walk by one, and chuck 'em a tasty tidbit if I have one*- because I love 'em, and I respect them, and because they're really fucken smart. They not only remember your face, but they tell their mates all about you. No shit. I have only ever been swooped once in 45 years, and that was a juvenile. I ducked, spun, pointed at him and yelled "OY! PULL YA FUCKEN HEAD IN!" and it never happened again, and that was on the road from my place to the supermarket. True story.
However.
Many Aussies hate and are truly a bit scared of magpies, as the stories are true. Rural kids walking to school with ice cream containers, buckets, or stackhats on their heads for magpie protection. People needing their scalp sewn back together. I've seen a photo of a postman's open-face helmet that had a magpie's beak still embedded in the back of it, the silly bugger hit him so hard. I'm guessing the postie braked at exactly the wrong second for the poor maggie and he just couldn't pull up fast enough.
So I completely understand the poor woman basically shitting herself, she panicked. Probably knows someone injured by a magpie and thought she was about to lose her eyes or something.
So yeah, the story's horrible enough, no need to make people even more afraid of magpies.
*By which I mean a bit of meat if I have any. I like gulls as well, but those pushy bastards only get the bread
A magpie did not kill this baby, the mom freaking out over a birdie swooping at her killed her baby.
Don't get me wrong, this is a tragic event, but it was not the magpie's fault, at all.