It’s that time of year again, that prelude to Spring… magpie swooping season. Do you really understand these birds and how to live with them and mitigate swooping?

4ZZZ's Eliot Rifkin chatted about magpies with Gisela Kaplan, Emeritus Professor in animal behaviour from the University of New England, as well as an author of some best selling books.

For a deep dive...

To visit Professor Gisela Kaplan's bio page as well as see her bibliography of her award winning books on the animal behaviour of Magpies, Orangutans, Dogs and of course Native Australian Birds. One of Gisela's many books is Cognition and Behaviour of Australian Native Birds.  Here's the wikipedia on the Australian Magpie as well as Birdlife Australia's profile on our magpie.

Here's a government websites which gives tips on how to avoid being swooped and Magpie Alert! a social website which tracks aggressive magpies as well as another  crowdsourced online map which tracks where the currently swooping magpies. If you'd like to delve into Magpie intelligence, read the "Nature versus nurture: the key to magpie intelligence" article.