Jan could finally see clearly after more than a year. Then a bird gouged her eye

Jan Wright was marvelling at her clear eyesight following cataract surgery when the unthinkable happened.

A magpie-lark swooped down from the sky, its beak piercing her right eye.

Jan Wright had emergency surgery on her eye in September following a bird attack in Melbourne. Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

“I didn’t see it coming,” the retired teacher recalled of last September’s bird attack, which unfolded as she sipped coffee with friends in an al fresco area of a Frankston cafe and almost left her blind in one eye. She had suffered poor vision for more than a year due to the cataracts, and things were finally sharp.

“I was talking about my cataract surgery, which took place just two months earlier, when this mother bird attacked. There was a huge bang in the side of my eye. I had profuse watering. I couldn’t see anything through my eye. It was like looking through a thick, white veil.”

Wright sought immediate medical attention from an ophthalmologist before winding up at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital for emergency surgery to repair her lacerated cornea.

A new report by leading eye experts reveals a sharp rise in bird-related eye injures across Victoria, with 133 patients presenting to the Eye and Ear Hospital with swooping wounds over the past two years, compared with just 11 cases in 2022.

Co-author Dr Thomas Campbell, an ophthalmologist at the hospital, said the injuries ranged from eyelid lacerations and corneal abrasions to more serious injuries caused by beaks and talons penetrating the eye.

“They have potentially life-long visual changes and a reduction of the quality of their vision,” he said of the more seriously injured patients.

“Those cases require surgery. The wounds have to be carefully cleaned and then closed with stitches that are as fine as a human hair.”

There have also been interstate reports of people being left blind following bird attacks.

The research, which analysed almost two decades of hospital data, challenges a popular belief that most bird-swooping attacks occur during magpie and magpie lark breeding season, which runs from August to October.

Magpie-larks are known to swoop and can damage victim’s eyes.Credit: iStock

It found that most attacks take place between May and July, prompting the researchers to call for swooping education campaigns to start earlier in the year.

Campbell suspects that birds are swooping earlier in the year because they are defending potential nesting sites, rather than actual nesting sites.

“There’s aggressive competition to get a site where you can set up a nest, so it is pre-emptive defence rather than defending juvenile birds in a nest,” he said.

He said development encroaching on the birds’ habitat could be intensifying this competition by reducing the number of potential breeding sites.

Birds strike from above, which is why the head is often the first place hit.

“If you want to frighten away a big animal, the eyes are the perfect thing to attack,” Campbell said. “They are one of the most delicate parts of the body.”

He decided to research bird-related eye injuries after moving to Melbourne from Queensland and being staggered by the number of swooping injuries he was treating.

Cases remained stable in the early and mid-2000s but then peaked in 2017, with 123 cases reported at the Eye and Ear Hospital in the space of a year. They now appear to be rising again.

“Even when controlling for population size, there’s many more attacks in Victoria than other parts of Australia,” Campbell said. “I don’t know why that is.”

Interestingly, he added, Tasmanian magpies don’t swoop.

Victorians who don’t want to take the drastic step of relocating to Tasmania can protect themselves by avoiding known swooping zones, wearing hats and sunglasses, using zip ties on their bike helmets, and befriending local birds.

Bird Life Australia senior public relations adviser Sean Dooley said the results of the study were surprising, as he had believed most bird attacks took place during breeding season.

“Birds only swoop when they are protecting their vulnerable young,” he said. “It’s not that the birds are psycho. They don’t like to strike, because it is a physical risk for them.”

He said avoiding being swooped was a year-long activity.

“Magpies have very good memories, so if people treat the birds badly outside the breeding season they are likely to remember,” he said.

He recommends not yelling around birds and making a point of talking to them when you walk by.

Jan Wright’s treatment involved stitches in her cornea. This was followed by injections of antibiotics into her eye to reduce the risk of infection.

“It’s been a worrying time because my eyesight was impacted,” she said. “They said I was very lucky to not lose the sight in that eye.”

Wright’s eyesight is slowly improving, and she’s determined to ensure her experience doesn’t taint her relationship with her feathered friends.

“I love birds, we have loads of trees and birds in our garden. But I tell everyone to be cautious and to protect their heads and eyes.”

She urged people to seek urgent medical attention if they sustained a bird-related eye injury. “Don’t waste any time.”

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