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Australia’s trash bin-raiding cockatoos
- kristiandupont 5y agoCockatoo removing bird spikes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7UFoEuzYvc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7UFoEuzYvc
- ghosty141 5y agoI would hate this if I'd live there but it's still fascinating. These birds are so smart. I wonder how birds will do in like 200-300 years. Some birds in urban cities already fly through the subway system to find food.
- taberiand 5y agoIn 200-300 years, given the projections of climate change? Probably about as well as everything else...
- NotSwift 5y agoEven apart from global warming, approximately 1 in 8 bird species are already on the brink of extinction. Major causes are loss of habitat, introduction of predators (cats, rats, snakes) and spread of diseases (bird flu is already pandemic but new one will certainly arise).
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y agoNot only that. They live in the stations, because why not? Perfectly protected spaces. Except if flooded. That's not exactly wanted here, because of the corrosive bird shit, possible interference with information displays, signalling systems and/or overhead wire/third rail, health concerns, and so on. But somehow they manage to evade or adapt all countermeasures so far. Mostly pigeons/doves, the 'rats of the air', but also some larger seagulls. Funny when you stand on the platform, bored, watching some talking heads yabbering on some projected screen, waiting for a few minutes until the next train. And then suddenly one of the larger seagulls serenely gliding in out of the tunnel along the track, against the direction, scanning the platform. Like WTF!?
- LegitShady 5y agoThis must be some kind of installer error because if they can be picked up and removed something will do that.
- pvaldes 5y agoYup Australia, the place were nature hates you passionately. Now with metal spikes raining over your head included, because we felt creative and you have two eyes.
- ungamedplayer 5y agoI'll translate the headline into cockatoo for any of them reading "rèeeeeeèe e eeeeeee eeeeewe reweeeeweeeeaàaaaaaaaaew eeeeaaawwwwwwwwwwwwk" [Source: I hear them every morning]
- bryanrasmussen 5y agoNext species for humans to domesticate - cockatoos can be used as automatic bin openers when you need to throw out your garbage! also, according to the article, they sound like punk rock!
- pan69 5y agoThey sure sound like punk rock. I have flocks of them near my house every once in a while and they destroy everything. Here's a video to give you the idea of what they sound like (in real life it's much worse!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERYamZkj_xQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERYamZkj_xQ
- jansan 5y agoIf they are the "Punks of the bird world", then what are New Zealand's Keas? I heard from a New Zealander that they will completely dismantle your convertible car (with a soft top) or your bicycle, if you leave it with them. Update: Here is a Kea playing with traffic cones: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/kea-mischief-caught-on-cam/XIOAIAJ2MLLKGEBU3VTLLFSSZ4/ https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/kea-mischief-caught-on-cam/XIO... Update2: Keas vandalizing police car: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBdvRCkCNfo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBdvRCkCNfo
- lostlogin 5y agoI’ve seen them push moderate size rocks off bin lids in order to get in. I’ve seen them remove a broom handle that was pushed through the handles of multiple bins (by pushing the broom handle out first). And then I’ve seen a group of them get fed by sliding down a tin roof on their claws, making the most hellish noise to get the humans out of bed. Usually though, they are just ripping bits off cars and mangling the aerials. They are hilarious and destructive arseholes.
- peanut_worm 5y agoI strongly suspect that Kea are the most intelligent animal other than humans and maybe chimps.
- rstuart4133 5y agoI'm an Australian, and of course am familiar with cockatoos. In fact a couple years ago the neighbourhood got together at Xmas, and discovered after a few drinks a cockatoo was running a protection racket on all of us. The guy across the road has his BBQ vandalised if he didn't feed them, we had our shoes torn apart, the mechanic next door has his tools stolen - and so on. Each household was targeted on a different day over weeks. It is annoying, but I was secretly proud Australia had the imaginatively destructive birds on the planet. Then I went to NZ and found I was wrong. While I watched, a Kea took a a fellow tourists car. First the radio antenna was thrown to the ground. Then it attacked the gunk that holds the windscreen in. I left to do the tourist thing, and when I cam back some car window was on the ground, the seat upholstery was in shreds and car dash reduced to little pieces of plastic. Horrified, I rushed off to tell one local store owners, who just gave me "what can you do shrug". And this was just one bird in less than an hour. I'm not sure I could have got into that car so quickly without tools. Later I noticed all the houses had everything more delicate that a 1" iron pipe covered in wire mesh - including the TV antenna's. (I have no idea why the antenna's still worked.) The place was like fort Knox. They are the most amazing birds, and as you say come across as highly intelligent. Like all intelligent things, they can be remarkably deadly. Kea's have been know to eat and kill a sheep (in that order).
- sellyme 5y agoIf the bin chickens learn how to do this as well, we're doomed.
- dkdbejwi383 5y agoI hope bin chickens are given the right to compete at the Brisbane Olympics
- Mordisquitos 5y agoRelevant song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO-OpFjHRbE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO-OpFjHRbE
- ungamedplayer 5y agoTrue story. During ww2 Aussie diggers used to post a lookout for their superiors they would nickname the cockatoo while they were gambling or misbehaving. The cockatoo would make noise letting their fellow soldiers know of the incoming officer. This habit is named after the same habit the birds have for predators.
- foobar1962 5y agoThere are a couple of things Aussie kids are taught from a young age: don't touch spiders; don't splash water at the pool or throw sand at the beach; and don't stick your fingers in the cocky cage.
- enriquto 5y ago> don't splash water at the pool why is that?
- phist_mcgee 5y agoSo the walkways around the pool edge don't get wet, which would cause a tripping hazard for people walking past.
- tankenmate 5y agoYou'll get boxed around the ears by your elders :)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- satori99 5y agoI shared a house with a demented Cockatoo once. He was rescued from poor conditions and didn't really know how to be a bird. They are really smart -- like toddler smart, and very curious. They can solve puzzles, pick locks, and have epic screaming tantrums when they don't get what they want. Every. single. day. The video below is not mine, but resembles my experience living with a crazy parrot: https://youtu.be/BB4Qhtuxe6A?t=45 https://youtu.be/BB4Qhtuxe6A?t=45
- kwyjobojoe 5y agoBefore the council cut down the gum tree, they used to deliberately drop branches on me when I was outside. Any they could bite through, up to maybe 1.5cm thick, they would wait until I walked around the car then drop them on my head, and scream their heads off. Crafty bastards
- christkv 5y agoI remember seeing a group Cockatoos harassing a guy in the park they would fly from tree to tree following him specifically.
- golemiprague 5y agoNever found them to be such an issue, unlike magpies and ibis
- tunnuz 5y agoCockatoos are amazingly smart. They're also very loud.
- gonzo41 5y agoThere's a big flock of these that fly around my place just wrecking tree's. Every 2-3 months they swing past my yard and strip my pine tree's and then terrorize my neighbor who's been trying to grow a walnut tree for a few years. It's pretty entertaining. They are smart and just seem to always find trouble.
- schappim 5y agoHere is one that visited our house: https://files.littlebird.com.au/IMG_0420-rU3XEJ8IqAEehOrAwkJMWKs1KK4m.jpeg https://files.littlebird.com.au/IMG_0420-rU3XEJ8IqAEehOrAwkJ... https://files.littlebird.com.au/IMG_0271-hdbzS2TIutwOL5rAajPVh3lviymh.jpeg https://files.littlebird.com.au/IMG_0271-hdbzS2TIutwOL5rAajP... https://files.littlebird.com.au/IMG_0435-NDeiqB4ebNXl9leyBr8fie3WctdJ.jpeg https://files.littlebird.com.au/IMG_0435-NDeiqB4ebNXl9leyBr8... https://files.littlebird.com.au/IMG_0432-PoRHBh7IZWvtLjCxUZNUhcvKJgdH.jpeg https://files.littlebird.com.au/IMG_0432-PoRHBh7IZWvtLjCxUZN... We don't encourage them because they can eat our wooden deck.
- chrismorgan 5y agoIf we’re sharing cockatoo pictures, here’s one from 2019: on a table in Halls Gap, a cockatoo eating some pizza crust that it had been given by a tourist, sitting right beside a sign that I can only interpret as “don’t feed the kookaburras”: https://temp.chrismorgan.info/DSC06148.JPG https://temp.chrismorgan.info/DSC06148.JPG
- yreg 5y agoBirds can also be trained for the reverse outcome – to collect trash and deposit it in exchange for seeds. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25180662 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25180662
- pjmlp 5y agoI wonder if they will get into collective agreements for seeds. :)
- cturner 5y agoThree years ago, we had a month in Australia, and drove through the SA wine regions and then the coast road to Melbourne. Some time after crossing the border, we stopped at a town Lorne which was much like the previous coastal town, except instead of gulls there were cockatoos everywhere. One flew in close to show interest at chips on my plate, turning its head to size me up - would it be worth making an attempt? I turned towards it, it sidled away awkwardly.
- danpalmer 5y agoWow the cockatoos in Lorne really have a reputation. I drove up to Lorne from Melbourne when I was in Australia and one of my most vivid memories is a cockatoo eating bits of pizza out of a bin with pizza sauce smeared up its face.
- BrissyCoder 5y agoYou mean down to Lorne.
- sircastor 5y agoAngus of Maker’s Muse posted a video last year about creating puzzles for the local wild cockatoos. They’re very smart birds. [1] https://youtu.be/A5YyTHyaNpo https://youtu.be/A5YyTHyaNpo
- Nostaris 5y agoThis reminds me of owls in Futurama: https://futurama.fandom.com/wiki/Owl https://futurama.fandom.com/wiki/Owl
- doctor_eval 5y agoWe had cockatoos who lived with us north of Melbourne (out St Andrews way). They are great birds, and fascinating to watch, and also, if you feed good quality bird seed then they will come around at the same time every day, and be your friends, and if one day you don't feed them for some reason, they deliberately throw your pot plants off your window ledge, one by one, smashing them to the ground, and then you swear never, ever to feed the brilliant little fuckers again.
- rbut 5y agoLived out that way growing up. They gnawed at our weatherboards and deck railing. Always a major PITA.
- NeoVeles 5y agoYears back when I lived in South Morang, they would go house to house digging through the rubbish bins. Even if you put bricks on the lids, they would team up to topple them off and get the lid open. Nowadays I live a little further south, we have clouds of screaming Cockies every morning. I wouldn't dare feed them for fear they would bring the entire hoard. They are cool birds bu very... independent if you will.
- justinclift 5y ago> Even if you put bricks on the lids, they would team up to topple them off and get the lid open. Sounds like a perfect opportunity to place a jack-in-the-box. :)
- msrenee 5y agoI'd be worried they'd plot some kind of revenge.
- Mandatum 5y agoAs they slowly dismantle your house, your car, your life.
- Mandatum 5y ago
- londons_explore 5y agoIt always amazes me how much food is left in bins. I personally try to never chuck food away - it saves me money, saves the environment and helps others eat (by keeping food prices low). Perhaps once a month do I chuck something out. (Usually because it's gone mouldy before the best before date) Yet I have seen people who seem to chuck out tens of things every week. I just don't understand their logic - why buy what you can't eat? In this video for example are bits of uneaten bread/sandwiches.
- terrywang 5y agoNot just cockatoos, but also magpies, at least that's what I've observed recently. Both are intelligent birds with not so good reputation, I'd avoid making them my enemies. Both can do significant damanages to your garden and plants. Cockatoos and magpies are intelligent enough to observe human beahviour and retaliate when those who try to offend them when they are not present at home (don't ask me how I know this...). Over time, I learned to make friends with them, make the gardens friendly and attractive to them, toys (river stones, small toys, ablone shells, etc.), clean water source and so on, I've been living with both cockatoos and magpies for years now. It seems that the magpies have a strong sense of territory, the same group returns everyday, while cockatoos visit less often, or simply randomly. On cockatoos: One of my neighbours have been keeping a white cockatoo as pets for 10+ years, the bird start to lose feather on tis chest... The bird is kept in a large cage with a meshed window facing a park / playground, the bird says hello to pretty much everyone who waves at or greets it. Sometimes it even says "have fun" in a weird tone - it took me at least 20 times before I figured out what it was trying to say ;-) On magpies: their beaks are not at advantage to open bin lids as cockatoos'. However, individual magpies are smart and powerful enough to open overflowed bins' lids and mess up the garbage.
- matthiasv 5y ago> On cockatoos: One of my neighbours have been keeping a white cockatoo as pets for 10+ years, the bird start to lose feather on tis chest... It's not "losing" feathers, it's likely pulling them out due to living in a confined space without appropriate social ties and thus behaving like this.
- pibechorro 5y agoDing ding ding. Dont cage birds, if you are not working from home and giving them stimulation all day everyday, its torture.
- pvaldes 5y agoCan be also Psittaccine beak and feathers disease, a relatively common and non treatable disease of cockatoos caused by (who would suspect that) a circovirus. This birds were born to be the avian version of the Jocker (and a really good one).
- rini17 5y agoJust don't throw away food recklessly. As part of EU drive for garbage recycling/separation it's now becoming mandatory to put food scraps and leftovers separately into dedicated container. That's a good thing to avoid wildlife learning to scavenge.
- RicoElectrico 5y agoIn the past decade wild hogs have grown to be a major problem in Polish cities. Plowing through lawns, tipping over trash bins. The animals themselves are not an immediate danger to humans (they really do not care about you), but they destroy gardens and can cause car accidents. All these 5 or so mandatory segregation bins do not fit into the enclosure, so in my case one of them is on the driveway, which hogs tip over almost every night. Not sure how to deal with them without making trash collectors' lives harder. It's so ironic I haven't seen one hog (or marks of their existence) back on vacations in countryside.
- pjmlp 5y agoYeah, but then since the good fellow humans are too lazy to properly lock the bins, the raven gangs manage to open them anyway. Also it doesn't help that in most cities you have to hunt down to a garbage bin close to bus stops, which is then stuffed with all kinds of possible garbage anyway.
- scottmcdot 5y agoWe also call them "rubbish bins".
- danwills 5y agoAgreed, although this particular type of bin also gets called a "Wheelie Bin" (or perhaps "Wheely Bin"? not sure how to spell it actually..) a lot, at least in South Australia.
- adamjb 5y agoYeah, my rubbish bin's in my kitchen, thank you very much
- crashbunny 5y agoWhere's your bin? "I's been on holidays" No, No. Where's your wheelie bin? "OK, OK, I's really been in gaol"
- KineticLensman 5y agoIn the UK they are colloquially referred to as dustbins. My local council formally refers to them as rubbish bins and their contents as rubbish or waste [0]. The term wheelie bin is used when they do in fact have wheels (ours don't). Very few Brits would call them trash bins or trash cans. [0] https://newforest.gov.uk/rubbish https://newforest.gov.uk/rubbish
- jiggawatts 5y agoThe real connoisseurs of trash are the Bin Chickens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4dYWhkSbTU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4dYWhkSbTU
- ehnto 5y agoIn SA they've retained some of their elegance, so I was really surprised to find out they have such a bad name in the bigger cities! They are really elegant in flight.
- pteraspidomorph 5y agoIt's the Ibi~~~s... (nsfw language) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO-OpFjHRbE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO-OpFjHRbE
- peanut_worm 5y agoWe have our own bin chickens in America! They are everywhere in Florida American White Ibis
- exhilaration 5y agoIncredible video, thank you! I thought it really was a Planet Earth segment but it slowly became more and more hilarious.
- pjmlp 5y agoNot only cockatoos, ravens are also quite social. Around the German area where I live, they team up in "bird gangs" and if the fellow humans were too lazy to properly close the garbage, they will open it, either alone or via team work. It is not uncommon to eventually find garbage bags scattered around, which they took out while searching for food, thanks to those lazy animals species that failed to properly close the garbage container.
- ausimian 5y agoLive in Sydney and have had the cockatoos in our bins a few times in the past six months. They’re pretty brazen too, caught them at it a while ago and they carried on like I wasn’t there. Started leaving a brick on the lid which seems to work.
- fileoffset 5y agoI tried that, worked for a while then they figured out how to push the rocks/bricks off. I then tried a short rope which required unhooking to open the bin... they chewed through it immediately. The only thing that worked in the end was a metal chain secured to a bolt.
- ehnto 5y agoMy old friend had a Cockatoo who lived with them as a kid, but wasn't captive at all. He just chose to spend his time with them after they found him orphaned and took care of him for a while. He would disappear for a day or two and come back, and he would follow my friend to school and hang out around the classrooms waiting. The teachers would try to shoo him and he would rage against the machine, they are loud as hell. Appropriately, his name was "Rowdy". "Cockatoos... producing an average of 120 decibels and loudest of 135 decibels of noise. The loudness can be judged by looking at the noise level of 140 decibels of a 747 Jumbo Jet."
- blincoln 5y agoI wonder if their ears are physically more resistant to hearing damage than ours, or if they're just guaranteed to go deaf as they age.
- ehnto 5y agoIn captivity they can live up to 80 years old so if it's possible someone knows the answer to that. I have to imagine they have something similar to humans ears where we have a muscle to dampen the sounds of our jaw area and voice.
- unixhero 5y agoIn Australia it is not called trass, they say rubbish. Any older Aussie will call you out on it. "It's rubbish mate"
- timbit42 5y agoSmithsonian is American so they translate it.
- modernerd 5y agoIggy Pop keeps a Moluccan Cockatoo called BiggyPop. He has a bunch of videos of Biggy judging and rocking out to music if he likes it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a7TGxn3cVU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a7TGxn3cVU https://www.instagram.com/biggypop/ https://www.instagram.com/biggypop/ They're clearly smart birds and it's no wonder a bin lid presents little challenge in the wild. They also have the bite force of a Husky[1], which makes them pretty scary in the wild and not a great choice as a pet for most. [1]: https://beakcraze.com/can-a-cockatoo-bite-your-finger-off/#How_Strong_Is_A_Cockatoos_Bite https://beakcraze.com/can-a-cockatoo-bite-your-finger-off/#H...
- tzs 5y agoSee also Snowball the dancing Eleonora cockatoo [1], who has at least 14 distinct dance moves which are shown in the videos in this article [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_(cockatoo) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_(cockatoo) [2] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/07/study-of-snowball-the-cockatoo-suggests-humans-arent-the-only-ones-who-can-dance/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/07/study-of-snow...
- oxplot 5y agoThese are some of the most annoying birds here in Oz, probably right behind Magpies. I've seen them destroy/pull off the outer plastic trim on a car roof like they had pliers for beaks. They're pretty meaty and large and are not scared off easily. Loud as fuck too.
- mschuster91 5y agoIn Germany, we have similar problems, just with crows. In Munich, many trash bins had to be upgraded to be crow (and pigeon) proof, and there have even been occasional attacks - due to covid restrictions, cities became more quiet so the birds nested... and then the restrictions eased and people invaded the areas of the nests.
- Syzygies 5y agoIn the 1980's I attended an amazing talk by Lynn Conway. She described how with Carver Mead she had popularlized VLSI design methodology, using her studies in anthropology for insights into deliberately fomenting a revolution. She opened the talk with a map of birdwatcher observations, detailing the concentric circles of technology spread across England as blue tits taught each other to peck open foil caps: "In the early 20th century, milkmen would deliver milk to British doorsteps, in bottles that were sealed with foil caps. Then, in the 1920s, homeowners started noticing holes in the foil. The culprits were blue tits. They had learned to peck open the bottle caps to drink the layer of cream beneath. The behaviour quickly spread. By the 1950s, it seemed that every blue tit in Britain knew the technique." https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/scientists-instil-new-cultural-traditions-in-wild-tits https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/scientist...
- loftyal 5y agoLyre Bird of south australia sings like a chainsaw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSB71jNq-yQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSB71jNq-yQ
- dpedu 5y agoMaker's Muse, a 3d-printing youtube channel has a video where a local and wild cockatoo is given 3d-printed puzzles to solve. It's really worth a watch, it highlights how the bird figures things out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lgWcGIoSVA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lgWcGIoSVA
- lightbulbjim 5y agoAustralian birds have a huge evolutionary advantage over species in other parts of the world. Modern birds evolved in Australia. See: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=oJxZCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT11 https://books.google.com.au/books?id=oJxZCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT11
- yesenadam 5y agoThat's a fascinating book, and led to a fascinating wikipedia rabbit hole, thank you!
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]