Australian magpies

I've always been surprised by the fact that French people seem to know nothing at all about our Australian magpies.

Our birds Down Under look a litle like the French bird referred to as a pie, pronounced pee.

So, French people imagine that they're basically the same creature. Few people know that our Australian magpies, in their nesting season, attack children on bicycles by diving down at their heads. This kind of attack used to terrify me when I was a boy in South Grafton.

An Australian child on a bicycle, when attacked by a wild magpie, is capable of bending his head, looking down at the road, and maybe running into an approaching vehicle. If the bird uses its heavy beak to hit a child on the skull, this can cause a nasty wound

For French readers : The name in French of our possibly-vicious Australian magpie is the Cassican flûteur (Gymnorhina tibicen).