Plovers: The funniest bird ever?

I had never been exposed to this bird until I was visiting with a friend in Brisbane, Australia. It is a very well-known species and there are plenty of them there. Like a lot of wildlife in Aus, the bird can be very aggressive - That's just the way stuff is down under.

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As it turns out there are more than one type of Plover out there, and the one I am referring to is called the "Spurwing Plover" and it is extremely territorial and has been known to swoop in and attack the heads of humans who get near whatever it considers to be its territory.

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They look lovely, but will scare the bejesus out of you if they decide you are a threat. They aren't capable of hurting you for the most part but they are relentless in their attack. Once they have singled you out, you really don't have much choice but to get out of their area.

I first encountered one when I was walking along the coast in Brisbane and while the bird was not bothering the masses of tourists at all, the bird had singled out a person of a certain profession that seems to invoke the ire of many different kinds of species due to no fault of the worker's own: The Postman.

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the other ones are harmless and never attack
While I did not have a camera good enough to record this situation, it is quite humorous the way that there were tourists walking all over the place and the Plover wasn't fussed with any of them. As soon as the postman turned up though, it went into full attack mode. He was on a motorbike so the sound of it may actually agitate the bird, I have no idea. It was just funny how it would dive bomb him over and over again until he was a bit down the street, only to have the same process picked up by another Plover half a km down the road.

The postman was wearing a helmet with spikes on it (not intended to kill the bird, just to ward it off) which I think maybe just reduces the chance of the Plover actually making full contact with him and knocking him off the bike. The postman didn't seem to fussed by the entire situation and almost certainly is desensitized by the entire process at this point as he didn't even react to the impact.

credit to Cooper Taylor for this video

As you can tell from the video above, you will not get snuck up on by a Plover as they make a LOT of noise before striking. I think they are cute, but I am also glad I don't have to deal with that sort of danger here.