Birds In Australia Ranked From Most Awful To Truly The Most Awful By Me, An American

    From an American perspective, Australia is a beautiful and diverse ecosystem with so much awe-inspiring wildlife. Not the birds though. The birds are the worst.

    Tanner Greenring
    by Tanner Greenring

    BuzzFeed Staff

    8. Emus

    Lisa Maree Williams / Getty Images

    I’ll admit, I haven’t actually encountered an emu in my time in Australia, so I’m keeping them at the bottom of my ranking. But, I did hear about that time the Australian military literally lost a war against them (despite the fact that the military had machine guns and the emus, well, didn’t) so I’ve got healthy amount of respect for how awful they must be.

    7. Kookaburras

    Momorad / Getty Images

    I don’t actually have any specific complaints against kookaburras, they seem like lovely little birds, except that the first time I heard a kookaburra call I thought it was a man screaming at me from above and it scared the living shit out of me.

    6. Seagulls

    Peter Parks / AFP / Getty Images

    Now, we’ve got plenty of these back in the states, but I couldn’t help but be impressed by how frighteningly aggressive the seagulls around Sydney Harbour were as I tried to enjoy my lunch the other day. One stood next to me the entire time I was eating and just screeched at me until I gave it a bit of fried rice. (It only made things much, much worse.)

    5. Noisy Miners

    Bbeale / Getty Images

    A lot of Australian birds seem to have reputations for being really loud. A lot of Australian birds seem to have a reputation for being really aggressive. Noisy miners have a reputation for being excessively both. The one thing that noisy miners have going for them is that they’re apparently pretty nasty towards other awful Australian birds, which I’m broadly in favor of.

    4. Koels

    Yod67 / Getty Images

    Listen, I get that you’re a dumb bird and you have no concept of time, but it’s 5:30 in the fucking morning and I’m jet-lagged and I just really need you to shut the fuck up.

    3. Ibises

    Greg Wood / AFP / Getty Images

    Cons:

    They look terrifying.

    They eat garbage.

    They’re fucking everywhere.

    Pros:

    None.

    2. Cassowaries

    Birdimages / Getty Images

    I almost didn’t include cassowaries because they are clearly dinosaurs, not birds, but all the Australians I work with insisted. According to a 1999 report on bird murders (or whatever, I didn't read it closely), there have been 221 recorded cassowary attacks on humans. They’re also apparently pretty fond of attacking dogs and cats. But, what else would you expect from prehistoric monsters.

    1. Australian Magpies

    Burroblando / Getty Images

    Despite the preceding list of animals I hate, I’m actually an animal lover. I care about animal rights, I don’t eat meat if I can help it, I don’t even really like to kill spiders or swat flies. That courtesy and compassion does not extend to Australian magpies. They started this fight by dive-bombing our innocent human children and cyclists. They’ll get no sympathy from me.

    Honorable Mention: Flying Foxes

    Jochen_conrad / Getty Images

    Like? What the hell? You’re just fine with cohabitation on a continent where some of the bats are the size of small dogs? Did you know that they belong to a subclass called “MEGABATS”?!?! What a nightmare.