Our daughter was swooped by a magpie when riding her bike. Although she was not hurt it scared her and brought about many questions about why magpies don't like bike helmets to which I don't know the answers. It's natural, this indignation we feel when nature dares to impinge on our comfort. How dare the shark bite or the bee sting? How dare the possum steal our food or the spider catch us in her web? I am in the preposterous position of never having been swooped by a magpie but I know the hard look I saw in a magpie's eye when it was a threat to our young chickens. Had it really changed? Or was I just taking business too personally? So I think we have to ask the question "Whose business is it, anyway?" For us business often involves offices, emails, telephones, boardrooms, perhaps a CEO of an opposition business who has a scar across one cheek and whose face is naturally in grimace. Our swoops might be achieved with advertising, purchasing power, product placement, innovation (apparently harmless to magpies). But inadvertently, in the background, we create problems for magpies every day: windows, cars, tree felling, to name a few. A magpie's business is successfully rearing young and part of that goal is scaring off potential predators. I can't break down the helmet thing but I've heard of CEOs behaving much more ruthlessly for much less than the price of their children's lives. I don't suppose this pondering will reduce our daughter's fear but at least it might give her a bird's eye view of the problem.
Maggie Musings
Published
Out of the Cave 
This is so good especially the thought that CEOs act far worse than animals defending far more important things than a company.
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Thank you!
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😊. Love your CEO comparison!
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That’s very true, the magpies, swans that chase you or the masked lapwings that will swoop you if they feel their babies are at risk are just protecting their families. Perhaps the bird that comes nearest to a CEO is the cuckoo. Taking what rightfully belongs to other birds to help themselves.
I don’t know about bicycle helmets, perhaps the colour or shape looks threatening to them.
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Having been attacked several times as a child when riding my bike, I can totally sympathise with your daughter. Those magpies have been giving all the birds a hiding too. I wish I knew why bicycles and helmets were especially threatening. I wish CEOs would care for their staff and the communities in which they operate as much as their own financial interests. One day they might. Perhaps your daughter might grow up to be a CEO who does that with these lessons you are teaching her.
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I wonder where the world will be at by then…
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So interesting! It’s true that we’re so not used to nature attacking us even as we’re used to other assaults.
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I think this is terrific. Although it’s wrong to focus on one section, the second stanza bowled me over with its savagery, insight AND Succinctness. I’ve copied it into my notebook 🙂
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