All you people who have been swooped, all of you who have been attacked, those of you who have had your chips, your sandwiches, the TOFU in your LAKSA taken by birds ... I see you.

Before you cancel me, I do understand that birds who swoop are protecting their habitat, or their young, or maybe they are smart and remember you from SEVEN YEARS AGO, when you were randomly awful to them or one of their friends.

I also understand that we have done far more damage to birds and their habitats than they have done to us. They are beautiful, glorious, bringers of joy – THEY FLY!

But sometimes they fly too close. Those of us with a phobia of low-flying birds (I am among the phobic) panic whenever we read about attacks on the rise. For Melburnians 2017 was a bad year, with the number of eye injuries caused by magpies rising significantly.

This year, a Wollongong cyclist died after he swerved from the path to avoid being swooped by a magpie, hit a fence post and fell to the ground.

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And the residents of Sydney’s Hills district have been at war with a “particularly aggressive magpie” that was “terrorising residents”.

A council spokesperson said in a statement: “[It was] swooping underneath helmets ... to attack people’s faces. This bird was very aggressive and uncharacteristically territorial.”

The council had the magpie shot.

Greystanes resident Peter Danieluk said the magpie was responsible for giving him a heart attack last year during a swooping frenzy.

“It just did not stop, even as I was losing consciousness on the ground.”

Swoopings tap into an area of deep human vulnerability: attacks to the eye.

We’re squeamish about damage to the eye (inflicting it/it being inflicted on us) more so than any other body part. When I did self-defence class and we were told to gouge at the eyes of anyone that tried to rape or assault us, there was visceral ripple of disgust in the room. To gouge out someone’s eyes felt impossible, undoable – even if it would save our life.

Decades after reading Shakespeare’s King Lear, it is the gouging of Gloucester’s second eye that sticks in the memory (“Out, vile jelly.”) Likewise scenes of violence to eyeballs in Blade Runner and Buffy the Vampire Slayer remain, long after the story has faded.

But it’s not just magpies and eyes. Other species can also be scary.

Earlier this year Gizmo, a chihuahua, was taken by a seagull in Devon, never to be seen again. Its owner told the BBC: “A seagull swooped down and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck. My partner tried to grab his legs, but he was not tall enough and ... the seagull flew away.”

A dozen large birds materialised and launched themselves at me like missiles

Then there’s the ibis.

In an effort to investigate a case I’d heard about of an ibis that stole someone’s tofu from their laksa while lunching in Sydney’s Hyde Park, I heard stories about ibises stealing the beef out of someone’s wrap, an ibis stealing a piece of salmon “from [my] mouth. Bruised my lip” and an ibis stealing a food blogger’s macaroon as he exited the Zumbo pastry shop in Balmain.

My phobia of low-flying birds started when I was in my mid-20s and living in a house where there was a nest between the front door and the driveway. There was no other way to my car – I had to walk the path.

When it became clear that I could lose an eye, I improvised, crawling then later rolling across the lawn to the car. When that didn’t work, I wore a bin over my head and sprinted to the car.

It was horrible. I would turn up to my law firm job covered in dirt, and reeking of bin. (Soon after I would lose my job and move to journalism – proving the adage true that you should dress for the job that you want.)

A few years later, the fear of low-flying birds implanted in my subconscious, I was with friends in Cornwall, England.

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We were at the seaside, each with boxes of fish and chips, ready for a nice relaxing lunch on a bench by the water. Ahead the seagulls circled. Something about them didn’t look right. For a start they were twice the size of Australian seagulls.

As we sat on the bench, I warned my friends, “Be careful transferring the chips from the box to your mouth. Maybe bring the box right up to your mouth, like this … These seagulls look large and nasty.”

My friends laughed at me as I demonstrated lifting the box to head-height, sliding a chip through a crack in the box and quickly eating it – minimising the amount of time the food was in the open.

The laughter stopped when I fumbled with closing the box and my food spilled all over me.

Arrrghhh! Ouch! No! A dozen large birds materialised and launched themselves at me like missiles.

In a brief second, several horrible things happened at once: the food which was too hot, burned into my lap; the birds landed on me, clawing at my clothes and getting purchase on all areas of my body as they fed off the food that was scattered about my person; my friends ran away, leaving me alone on the bench; and my screams attracted the attention of patrons on a restaurant balcony above our bench, some of whom started filming me.

I’ll get over it. I’ll have to. It’s their world as well as ours – and occasionally they’ll let us know who’s boss.

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