One of the most common and yet peculiar superstitions in the UK is to salute a single magpie (Pica pica) to avoid bad luck. This is often accompanied by some form of salutation such as “Good Morning, Mr Magpie, where is your wife?” Magpies are monogamous and mate for life so a solitary bird has been considered a bad omen. The custom has also been traced to the myth that the bird was the only species not present at the crucifixion, lending to the belief that it is a cursed bird that brings bad luck.
Don't Look Back - Just Ride!
Certainly that seems to true if you happen to be riding a bike during the spring in Australia, where the local variety is noted for territorial aggression. Last Sunday, four-year-old Seth McInnes, out riding his bike in a Toowoomba park near Brisbane, Australia, was attacked by a magpie that pecked out his left eye leaving him blind in that eye and in excruciating pain. When I read this story, I was reminded of the shock scenes in Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” where the birds peck out the eyes of various victims. Such swoopng attacks are not uncommon during the August/September mating season for the male Australian magpie which is a much bigger version of its European cousin. The article even has advice about how to avoid attacks and injury such as wearing broad brimmed hats and dark glasses. Apparently, magpies will not attack if you look at them directly and if you walk through a danger zone, draw eyes on the back of a hat or wear your sunglasses on the back of your head. I don’t think I would risk staring down a swooping aggressive magpie and prefer the shotgun tactic.
BTW, the Latin word for magpie, “pica” is also the term for the weird psychological disorder, where sufferers eat non-nutritive substances such as nails, glass, buttons, dirt etc. The origin for the word comes from the belief that magpies eat and collect almost anything and especially have an eye for shiny things.
Great trivia in the last sentence — I just made reference to pica (the disorder, not the bird) in a comment on Russell Blackford’s blog not two weeks ago! (Was drawing an analogy between how we consider some food preferences to be subjective, while others — like pica — are pathological, vs. the idea that we consider some moral judgments to be subjective, but we still call sociopathy a pathology)
I feel very sad for the poor victim of the attack though. Worst part about becoming a parent: The news gets way more effing depressing…
The idea that magpies won’t attack if you’re looking at them is probably a myth. I read recently that drawing eyes on your hat or helmet might even have the opposite effect and cause the birds to take more interest in you. The best strategies seem mostly to be to avoid nesting areas as much as possible, or if magpies are nesting close to your house, try and befriend them out of nesting season by feeding them – they are far less likely to swoop people who they recognize as ‘friends’ (they are very smart birds). The experts say that if you do get swooped, cover your head and walk quickly toward shelter – don’t flail around and attempt to ward off the birds. They won’t go far from the nest, so if you look like you’ve been ‘driven off’ they will leave you alone.
Around where I live, cyclists have taken to fastening plastic cable ties to their helmets – I don’t know whether it works or not, but a lot of people seem to do it! It certainly looks bizarre – especially if, as I saw a few weeks ago, the plastic ties are all different colours and there’s a lot of them!
Well, magpies are common in the gardens around where I live, and I have never heard of anybody being attacked or being afraid of being attacked by them.
The first time I heard this “Good Morning, Mr Magpie, where’s your wife?” I thought it was very eccentric indeed. However, I was brought up in London and Surrey, where people say “One for sorrow, two for joy”. So if they see one, they eagerly look out for a second one, which amounts to the same thing. It also ties in neatly with the idea of the poor magpie being widowed (but how do people know not to say: “Good Morning Mrs Magpie, where’s your husband” ?).
I remember once seeing a French film set in the Middle Ages where there was a similar omen associated with seeing a lone bird rather than two.
I call ‘myth’ also on the ‘look directly, eyes/sunglasses’ advice too. In fact, looking directly may risk getting hit in the face and worse.
I’ve taken to just plain avoiding magpie-heavy areas during the spring rather than risk being attacked here in Australia. I’ve known of too many people who have felt a hit and come away with a few specks of blood on their shirt after being swooped. 
The ‘shotgun’ tactic has been used in extreme cases where people have been seriously hurt, but it’s just not feasible for all cases where swooping occurs. Avoidance is best policy.
This is not a “local variety” or a “cousin” of Pica pica at all ! It happens to have a similar black and white colour scheme, but it is not in the same species, genus, or even family. It is, in fact, related to butcher birds. So perhaps its odd habits are more excusable. The thing to remember about magpies in Europe is that cardinals need to be careful to look after their rings.
You can tell that I am not an ornithologist – thanks for the correction Rox
I’m not an ornithologist either, but there is always guesswork and Wikipedia.
There must have been an awful lot of birds at the crucifixion
Yes indeed. I have a great image in my head now – the Crucifixion a la Alfred Hitchcock…
Hi Nursemyra – I’ve missed you but there again I have been so busy.
Nice work, that also explains why all the Australians are like, “I don’t even go near these birds in the spring,” and all the Brits are like, “You guys are scared of magpies?!?”
I am surprised that nobody has pulled me up for confusing two separate legends here. It was a jackdaw, the Jackdaw of Rheims, who stole a cardinal’s ring, according to a poem in the Ingoldsby Legends by Richard Harris Barham.
The Thieving Magpie is best known from the opera by Rossini, and the magpie steals a silver teaspoon, with no church dignitary involved.
However, European magpies are related to jackdaws, both being part of the Corvidae, the crow family, sometimes considered more intelligent than dogs and cats.
Great joke youtube video of how to avoid Australian magpie attack from some scientists at the CSIRO http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wHreVKgOT4