The threat of dive-bombing magpies attacking riders at the UCI Road World Championships had been flagged ahead of the event, and they weren't empty warnings.
Dutch rider Bauke Mollema is the latest to be set upon by the birds, publishing a video of him being hit in the head while training in Wollongong, Australia.
Remco Evenepoel (Belgium) had said that he was followed and 'terrified' by a magpie ahead of the weekend's time trials, while Grace Brown (Australia) and Elynor Backstedt (Great Britain) have since reported run-ins of their own.
On Tuesday, Mollema revealed he was the latest, and provided video evidence, showing how the birds swoop down from behind and collide into the head.
Magpies are a well-known menace to cyclists in Australia, with the spring known as 'swooping season'. The large birds, eager to protect their newly-borns, perceive cyclists and sometimes pedestrians as a threat and do not hold back in trying to ward them away from their territory.
The birds typically swoop down and make contact with their claws or beak. They often clatter into the back of a rider's helmet but have been known to approach from the side and draw blood.
In extreme cases, the consequences can be severe and even fatal; in 2019 a man died after crashing his bike as a result of being swooped by a magpie in Wollongong.
"Magpies can be quite territorial and there's going to be a lot going on in their particular areas," local vet Paul Partland recently warned on Wave FM.
"Swooping birds tend to target people that are by themselves and also people that are moving in very fast ways. Unfortunately, I don't think we're going to slow down the cyclists in their race to take a little side breather as the birds swoop by."
There is a dedicated website to recording magpie attacks - Magpie Alert - which lists over 1,500 attacks this year alone.
