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The birds are smarter than us [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-07-11
So sick of politics I am going for weird animal stories seen in Slashdot and the Guardian And New Scientist.
Birds have never shied away from turning human rubbish into nesting materials, but even experts in the field have raised an eyebrow at the latest handiwork to emerge from urban crows and magpies. From a report
Nests recovered from trees in Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Antwerp in Belgium were found to be constructed almost entirely from strips of long metal spikes that are often attached to buildings to deter birds from setting up home on the structures. (of Carrion crows and Eurasian magpies)
These anti-bird spikes are meant to deter birds, they are supposed to scare them off, but on the contrary, the birds just utilize them."
From NewScientist : “It sounds like a joke,” says Auke-Florian Hiemstra at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands. “But it’s kind of heart-warming that these birds are actually outsmarting us and using anti-bird material for their own benefits.”
While the Rotterdam nest was made by crows, the other three were built by magpies, which construct large dome-like nests. The crows used the anti-bird spikes as a sturdy construction material, but the magpies may have appreciated their intended use: they placed most of the spikes on the nest's roof where they could deter predators, including other birds and weasels.
(Do click on the link above to see the photos on the Guardians site of nest using the materials, didn’t want to use their pictures in case of copyright issues.)
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