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A month earlier than usual, magpies are swooping - and drawing blood. They usually hit in spring but this year it’s winter.

“This magpie hit me. He hit me hard. He hit me once and got me on the ear - drew blood on the ear where he attacked me,” Paul Brice said after he was attacked on July 29 as he cycled near Lake Tuggeranong.

He’s been (literally) a watcher of magpies over the years because he is such an avid cyclist.

“It’s early for them this season,” he said.

He thinks the one which has currently got him in its sights is vicious.

“He’s a bad one,” he said.

"There’s not really much you can do. You really have to avoid the bad ones. A lot of them go for your head and your eyes.

“They can come at you with their claws but normally it’s their beak. They normally come at the back of the neck.”

He says they are not mere nuisances. They can actually be dangerous if they attack a cyclist near fast-moving cars and the cyclist swerves.

Climatologists say that average temperatures in July were more typical of spring than they were of the middle of winter, and that may have prompted the early dive-bombing.

Apart from magpies, other wildlife has appeared earlier than usual - like the national flower, Golden Wattle (Acacia pycnantha).

“I believe that we are a couple of weeks ahead of time. We are getting great flowering,” Suzette Searle, President of the Wattle Day Association, said.

Some magpies seem to really have it in for particular people and will preferentially attack them.
- Bill Bateman, Curtin University

She thinks this blooming season is a continuation of the rainy seasons of the past two years.

“We’ve had flowering wattle like I’ve never seen before. We’ve had trees that we can’t see the foliage because of the flowering,” Dr Searle said.

She is overjoyed by the sight. There are 1073 species of wattle in Australia but the gold of the Golden Wattle lifts her heart.

“I think it just grabs my heart. A wattle in full flower actually lifts my spirits. It’s an optimistic, bright happy reminder of what it takes to live in this country. It is resilient,” she said.

She thinks it embodies the Australian way: “Your time will come to bloom.”

She is cautious about attributing the flower’s abundance to global warming. It may be the effects of La Nina, the phenomenon where different temperatures at different ends of the Pacific cause more rain over Australia.

National Wattle Day is on September 1.

The idea is that it “welcomes the spring, and is among the first plants to regenerate after fire, reminding us of the importance of renewal as it paints our national colours across our landscapes”.

Wattle you may not want to avoid but magpies are a different story.

They are intelligent birds (though not the same species as the British magpie, which is a type of crow).

The Australian magpie discriminates.

“Some magpies never attack pedestrians but go for cyclists; others do the opposite,” according to Bill Bateman of Curtin University.

"Some hold a deep animus against posties on bikes, and reserve their fury solely for them.

“Even more astonishingly, some magpies seem to really have it in for particular people and will preferentially attack them.”

He doesn’t think cable ties in a helmet deter them.

The usual advice is:

• dismount from a bike and take a detour around nesting territory;
• walk quickly, but don’t run;
• protect your head with an umbrella, hat or helmet;
• wear glasses or sunglasses to keep your eyes safe;
• keep facing the magpie.

By Steve Evans Updated August 4 2023 - 10:21am, first published 5:30am