Did you know Australian magpies are dangerous animals?

Way back in 2017, we learnt something the hard way and although it still makes me giggle and feel guilty I felt you should all be made aware of this little-known fact (little known to everyone but the Aussies at least). Beware of the magpies or they’ll peck your eyes out!

Lauren told us this the first day we met her whilst wandering around beautiful Fremantle, shortly before one shit on her shoulder! Oh, how we laughed…. what a ridiculous statement to make we thought… Fast forward 2 weeks to a grey day in Brisbane (the day after Manny Pacquiao waved at me from the crowd which is a whole other story) and Jay, my Mum, Niamh and Owen went for a ride on the Brisbane Channel 7 wheel… Noah and I are not fans of heights and decided to take photos of ourselves at the Brisbane sign while we waited.

Once they came down off the wheel they walked over to meet us to tell us all about it and then in slow motion down swooped a magpie aiming Jay…. pecking him right in the eyeball! I don’t know why I still laugh when I think about it, genuinely sniggering about it now while writing it down, a magpie tried to peck my husband’s eye out!

They weren’t kidding or making an elaborate joke! The picture of his pecked eyeball is right at the bottom for those who want to see it or those who want to avoid it!

British magpies don’t bother with people, they tend to worry people when they are alone, Jay can often be found saluting a lone magpie but never did I think one would peck him in the eye! He was fine in the end, his eye was sore but he wouldn’t see anyone… I went to a pharmacist and she just acted as if it was an everyday occurrence and handed me a box of eye drops, job done!

But when you’re planning your next trip to Australia and people are warning you about the spiders, crocs and snakes just keep in mind they aren’t the only ones to worry about, magpies are nasty so and so’s and don’t even get me started on Cassowaries aka Dinosaur Chickens!

Take care of yourselves, and make sure you keep an “eye” out for those magpies when down under though!

Becky x

P.S. If you want to see an eyeball pecked by a magpie carry on scrolling… Alternatively, if you don’t want to see it, stop scrolling now!

I mean it… if you don’t want to see stop.

It’s really yuk!

STOP!