The tracking app preventing magpie attacks
We are approaching the danger point. As winter gives way to spring, every Australian looks up and begins cautiously cataloging the black and white flashes between tree branches.
As magpie nesting season begins in earnest, plans are being made to prevent attacks by land birds. Some of us, believing that birds have long memories and that it is possible to endear ourselves to them, will share morsels of ground meat with them to gain safe passage. School children begin carrying long sticks, hoping that a few seconds of defensive swinging will give them time to escape. Because we all know what can happen when the sound of wings rings too close to our ears this time of year.
A morning dog walk in Melbourne last year turned bloody for radio broadcaster Lauren Taylor when a black-and-white blur emerged from her peripheral vision. Then a magpie built a nest on his face. “I wasn’t sure if it was the beak or the claws that caught my eye,” Taylor recalls. “When it was stuck in my eye, I had to physically grab it and pull it out. I looked down and it was like…my eyeball was jelly.” [on the ground]. I took myself to the eye hospital and they told me: [the puncture] “If it had been a millimeter too much, I would have been in serious trouble.”
To add ironic insult to gnarly injury, this incident took place at Victoria Park, the historic home of the AFL’s Collingwood Magpies.
Taylor’s eye has healed, but her daily routine has changed. Leaving the home of the Magpies, he re-set his march along the banks of the Yarra. And he was wearing sunglasses as a protective shield.
Taylor’s trauma is shared by dozens of Australians every spring. According to a study in the journal Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology, the majority of bird-related injuries admitted to the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital between 2006 and 2022 were caused by birds attacking the area.
For a country that prides itself on innovation (the birthplace of Cochlear implants, the goon bag, the black box flight recorder and the lamington), collective defense against a known threat means little more than googly eyes and cable ties on bike helmets. God help the runner trying to get through 10,000 steps or the parent juggling a stroller if he takes one wrong step near the nest.
Melbourne couple Burak and Naz Kaya evaluated the increasing injuries and came up with a different solution. Their app Magpie Radar was launched earlier this year. After being attacked by wizards, Burak realized that although we cannot change the behavior of wild animals, we can adjust our own behavior to avoid them.
Technology project manager Burak says, “These birds have been in these lands for thousands, millions of years.” They met Naz in Türkiye and moved to Australia, where her mother came from, in 2019. “To them, we are the strangers to this land. They are doing their best to protect their home.”
His solution was an alert app that used crowdsourced information and real-time navigation, similar to those that alert Australians to other threats such as sharks at the beach or ticket inspectors on the train. Over four months, Burak collaborated with a team in India to develop the app, while Naz, who balanced the project with her job at the family’s Turkish restaurant, designed the user experience.
When users open Magpie Radar, they can see recently reported attacks. If raids occur on the running route, the app can recalculate a safer route. Annual subscription costs $5 for use of both functions (reporting and routing function). As independent developers, Burak and Naz say this is to cover the $4,000-$5,000 they spent making the app, as well as the ongoing upkeep of web hosting, maintenance, and sending SMS alerts.
As young parents, the couple also saw the product’s potential to eliminate the fear of spotting a magpie. “We wanted to build something serious but also fun,” explains Burak. “Slightly gamified, almost like Pokémon Go [where you catch virtual creatures in the real world using your phone] – people can walk around and search.”
Burak has plans for how the app could be used to alert neighbors to other threats like snakes and less scary local sights. “At Christmas time, I’m thinking of putting this up: [houses with Christmas lights] in practice because it is difficult to discover them. And on Halloween, families can use it to see tagged houses giving out candy.” It’s almost a kind of next-generation neighborhood watch, putting the power of staying safe and keeping kids occupied in our collective hands.
For Lauren Taylor, the app might not have saved her from a magpie attack, but it could at least warn others and also answer the one question that haunted her long after the sneak attack.
“‘What is my responsibility? Should I report this to the council or to other people?’ I thought. ” he says. “I think I would use an app like that so I wouldn’t have to worry about magpies.”
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