Coming home from work today I was attacked by a magpie. I came home just before lunch because I wasn’t feeling very well, and picked up a sausage roll at the station for lunch. I was eating as I walked home, and suddenly there was an ominous thundering of wings behind me, and a huge black and white mass of feathers swooped across my shoulder. My first instinct was naturally to protect myself, but it turned out the dire bird was more interested in attacking my food than me. It landed on a fence a couple of metres away with half my sausage roll in its beak.
And then it actually followed me. Another 30 metres or so down the street it came at me again, but this time I was prepared and turned to stare it down in time. It glared balefuly at me from another fence as I walked cautiously on.
In hindsight it’s good that it was only after my food. If it had been protecting a nest, I could very well have taken damage.