Encouraged by her teacher, Emma camped in the playground, watching their resident magpie, Sir Swoopsalot, swoop people. She then wrote down who the magpie swooped.
"I watched the people he swooped, and I recorded it," Emma told the ABC.
"Then I got everything I recorded, and I figured out that they [the people the magpie swooped] were male, they were tall, and they had thin or receding hair."
Her next port of call was to make an online survey with a QR code and ask strangers at her local park to fill it out.
The survey included questions about their, age height, hairstyle, weight, whether they’ve been hurt by a magpie or not, and how to rate magpies out of ten.
Why do magpies swoop some people and not others?
Since then, the survey has gone viral, with over 30,000 people worldwide answering her questions.
Combining through the data herself, Emma says there was a definite pattern that men with less hair get swooped more often.
Interestingly, magpie expert Professor Darryl Jones told the ABC this is the first time anyone has studied the link between swooping magpies and appearance.
The data is now sitting with Professor Jones to see what else he can glean about magpies.
Well done, Emma!
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