My Meeting With a Pterodactyl

I was having a conversation with a good friend the other day when the subject of traumatizing experiences with wild animals came up. It brought back a horrific but hilarious story of my childhood in Brisbane, Australia. Aside from being chased by dogs while delivering papers on my paper route, I was also victim to flying predators from above. For those of you not familiar with magpies, they are indigenous passerine birds of the crow family native to Australia. They closely resemble a crow except they also wear white markings. Australians will warn you that spring is magpie season, and the mother and father magpies become highly aggressive and protective of their young ones. Caution is advised to bicyclists who happen to ride in the vicinity of magpie nests during this season as the adult magpies will often swoop down and attack the poor soul who enters their domain.

I still remember very clearly the day I was riding my bicycle home from school on a bright hot day in September. I was cycling at a leisurely pace along a stretch of paved road when I hear this excruciatingly loud, hysterical squawk behind my ear. I feel two violent blows to the back of my skull. Frightened, head throbbing and heart racing, I turn around to find what appears to be a pterodactyl flapping its wings inches from my face. I quickly face straight ahead and start pedaling as fast as I possibly can while screaming bloody murder. Suddenly, I hear my back tire blow out and I find myself slowing down. As the bicycle loses speed I quickly jump off, start yelling, swearing my head off, jumping up and down, and waving my hands in the air at what I soon realize is not an extinct flying dinosaur, but a very much non-extinct, and very vocal magpie. It must have looked like quite the scene. Ok, thinking about this now I find it very hard not to laugh out loud, but I assure you at the time, I was in quite the distraught state. In fact, my body was trembling at the traumatizing thought of just being violently attacked by a magpie. What in the bloody hell had I done to offend him or her? Shaking, and muttering filthy obscenities, I walked my bicycle the rest of the way home with my tail between my legs. I guess I should explain that I had already popped my tire twice that month over some broken glass on the road. So when I asked my Dad to help me repair my puncture he got irritated and told me to go repair it myself. I explained what had happened and that the magpie had popped my tire, but he wouldn’t have any of that. He said I had a very creative imagination but he wasn’t going to be duped into believing that a piece of poultry had swooped down and popped my tire. We had only just moved to Australia the previous winter so we weren’t aware yet of the dangers of magpie season. He said he had never heard of birds attacking bicyclists and told me to stop making up stupid stories. I was furious. I threw the bicycle down and ran to my room in a raging fit. Obviously, I was upset because the attack was undeniably very real to me, and I was frustrated that my Dad thought I was telling lies.

Well, I eventually had my victory when a few months later, we were all watching the news on TV and a segment came on warning parents to make sure their children wore helmets during magpie season. I remember jumping up from the couch and shouting defiantly, “Ah ha! I told you so!” to my Dad. I was quite pleased with myself. Unfortunately, the news segment never mentioned a word on magpies popping bicycle tires. But I assure you that this magpie bloody well popped my tire! And I still remember whenever I rode my bicycle home from school and came across that stretch of road, I would always start waving a fist in the air and roar like a raving lunatic at any would-be feathered attackers to “eff off!”