They have some beautiful calls/songs, and are notorious for being extremely territorial and will swoop/attack any intruders during mating season. They also recognise individual humans - which can be good or bad depending on your relationship with them.
They don’t have forward facing eyes, so they might not understand that a human has to turn its head to see something.
I’m pretty sure they understand this well — it’s common knowledge that a swooping magpie will stop attacking if you stare straight at it. (Of course, ‘common knowledge’ isn’t necessarily correct, but a quick search seems to confirm this case.)
This makes it sound like they're unreasonable or aggressive, which is very much not the case. They're just defending their nests from perceived threats.
>They also recognise individual humans - which can be good or bad depending on your relationship with them
This also means that if you're a regular in the area, you will have a reputation with them and (assuming you don't go out of your way to harass them and ruin said reputation) they will not bother to swoop. When I was a boy I spent a lot of time playing in a park near my house which had a number of magpie families, and was not swooped or threatened once.
That's a judgement/point of view call.
Having been swooped and attacked just for trying to walk down my driveway it's definitely easy to call it unreasonable and aggressive.
> you will have a reputation with them and (assuming you don't go out of your way to harass them and ruin said reputation) they will not bother to swoop
Maybe true in some rare cases, but I've not heard of that happening frequently without some kind of active relationship (such as through feeding). The magpies I lived near as a kid never got used to humans, and never let me pass without swooping.