A Queensland man has captured unnerving footage of himself being swooped by a magpie using his GoPro headband strapped on backwards.
A cyclist has shared alarming footage of a magpie attack from an angle you don’t see every day.
While pedalling along a path in Queensland last week, Lachlan Sosinski filmed as he was swooped by a cranky bird.
He recorded the brief interaction using a GoPro camera strapped to his head, but in unconventional fashion, had the camera filming the path behind him.
What it captured was enough to frighten even the toughest of Aussies, with the furious bird launching itself at Mr Sosinski with unnerving ferocity.
He shared the scary scenes in a video posted to TikTok on Friday.
“I know that literally no one asked, but I’ve got my GoPro headcam on backwards to film what it’s like to be swooped from behind and get another angle,” he told viewers.
The angry bird was shown flying directly towards the back of Mr Sosinski’s head four times in the footage, narrowly missing clipping his scalp and ears.
Despite the imminent threat, Mr Sosinski managed not to swerve or duck his head to avoid the bird, somehow remaining in a steady position throughout the ordeal.
His nerves of steel didn’t go unnoticed by viewers, many noting how terrifying it was to get swooped from behind by a magpie.
“Aussies aren’t afraid of anything, except this. This is terrifying,” one wrote in a comment.
“Please explain to me how you are that calm,” another wrote.
“You’re so calm. I would have fully fallen off by now, or drove my bike into the tree,” a third wrote.
It’s been a particularly brutal season for swooping magpies, with horrifying video showing a Sydney man being attacked several times by one of the birds west of the city last month.
So far this year there have been 4516 reports of magpie attacks across Australia with 573 of those resulting in injuries.
Magpies usually nest in spring, and begin swooping to protect their nests and eggs from mid-September onwards.
Male magpies often defend their territory against real or perceived threats to their eggs. But their behaviour only lasts until the chicks become fledglings – a young bird.
Last month Sydney’s Lane Cove Council pledged to cull overly-protective magpies, which are a protected species in NSW, after a number of violent attacks.
The council claimed it had no choice but to reduce their numbers to prevent serious injury or possibly a death to local residents who had documented and photographed their assaults.
A ‘license to harm’ had been granted for the area’s most aggressive birds.
Originally published as Cyclist captures ’terrifying’ magpie swooping footage
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