This is the Friends of History Debating Society. I'm John Bachelor with Jeremy Sackett in New South Wales.

Dallas is his very faithful and calm and generous spoodle.

And Jeremy has collected through Dallas's generosity a family or several of Magpies.

Now, Magpies are smart, like crows. I live with crows, they're very smart, they know when

sailor and I are coming by, they give us a chorus in the afternoon. They sleep in a little

bit in the morning and then Grandpa

Crowe wakes them up and I can know how many minutes till dawn.

It's around first light.

However, Jeremy has magpies who are Kagee with Dallas but elsewhere Magpies have a terrible

reputation in springtime.

Jeremy are there already warnings about Magpie rage around your neighborhood

or in New South Wales?

There are warnings galore, John.

In fact, official warnings too. Our local councils here on the East Coast... are magpie swooping season and this is a season that comes about around about August

September every year and that's when the magpies are mating they're starting to get

their young and they become very very protective of their nests and unfortunately they do see us humans as a

possible predator and a possible enemy of their young ones so what they do is they

start to go out and force and swoop and when they swoop they are

are pretty aggressive.

Already this week we've had reports of at least one poor lady in Sydney

who actually suffered head injuries because of Magpie fearing for its young being taken by this poor woman who was literally only just walking past its nest had nothing to do with trying to take its young.

She got hit in the head with a beat by a magpie that was just really trying to keep its young

...