A golfer's game was interrupted by a cheeky magpie which claimed his ball and tee to pick a fight.

Nick Livings, 36, was playing a round of golf with his friends Chris and Alex at Coulsdon Manor Golf Club in south London when a bird began terrorising the group.

The dad-of-two from Caterham, Surrey, had just taken a shot when the magpie flew down and stood on top of his ball.

Nick tried everything to shoo the bird away, walking right towards it and throwing sticks nearby to startle it until it eventually flew off- or so he thought.

After taking his next shot the recruitment director turned round to see the bird perched on his golf bag- potentially having been attracted to the "shiny zip"

In an attempt to get the bird away from his bag Nick began waving his hands around, and a hilarious video captures the moment the bird pecked his thumb.

He said: "I saw the magpie fly out of the tree and land on top of my ball, which I thought was weird. Then it started really pecking at the ball, throwing it, and digging all around it. "

"I started walking around with this magpie on my bag thinking it would jump off or fly off but it didn't."

"The closer I got I thought 'maybe it just wants to be friends' but apparently not. It latched onto the end of my thumb and I screamed like a little girl. "

"You can hear from my voice that it caught me off guard. There was no injury, it was just the shock of it clamping down on my glove."

"We stopped filming because of the laughter, but it kept following us for a while after."

Once the trio made it to the next hole the bird finally flew off.

Nick says all his family and friends have found the video hilarious, even if it doesn't show him in the "manliest" light."

He added: "I have shown it to a few people and there is a lot of laughter- mainly based on my high pitched reaction. "

"It doesn't show me in the most manly of lights! I was attacked by a tiny little bird as a 6'2 bloke. "

"I definitely wouldn't go back to the course- especially now because magpies attack you!"

"I was definitely shocked. I put my hand out thinking 'I am going to befriend a bird here, I can't wait to show the kids' and it obviously got the hump. "

"I must have been near its nest or something, but either way the bird was having a sh*t day and it took it out on me."