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Birds Build Nests from Anti-Bird Spikes
- chris72205 3y agohttps://archive.li/2023.07.13-183756/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/13/science/magpies-birds-nests.html https://archive.li/2023.07.13-183756/https://www.nytimes.com...
- boomboomsubban 3y agohttps://archive.is/7QMu7 https://archive.is/7QMu7 Previous discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36689463 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36689463 It's hard to forget that hair.
- sschueller 3y agoWhat does the NYTimes article add to the previous article at naturalis.nl other than a paywall?
- boomboomsubban 3y agoBetter pictures. I read the naturalis article and had no real clue what I was looking at.
- tilsammans 3y agoAuke-Florian is great. He's a talented presenter in addition to being a scientist. In The Netherlands, he is sometimes flown in for sciency sound bites on national television. Memorable hair, indeed. https://youtu.be/UgnK483jiDE https://youtu.be/UgnK483jiDE
- blitzar 3y ago[flagged]
- jrockway 3y agoGuess I can own a cat guilt-free then.
- blitzar 3y agoDrones have feelings too.
- praptak 3y agoThis makes their achievements even more amazing.
- TapamN 3y agoExplaining the joke/reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsgnrYog6W0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsgnrYog6W0
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- DANGER_FF_19 3y ago[flagged]
- bennyg 3y agoI had birds build a nest in a nook where I put the spikes going up and down like stalactites and stalagmites. They didn’t care and built right in the middle of the spikes… will look at just boarding up the nook next year I guess.
- blackbeans 3y agoIt was explained in the original Dutch video that birds choose to build a nest under the spikes, because it protects them from other animals trying to steal their eggs.
- hecatia 3y agoThis sort of happens in the wild too. Weaverbirds spend their life on spiny trees and build their nests on branches of such spiny trees.
- Fiahil 3y agoSpikes and other stuff like these never work. You know what does ? This : https://www.amazon.com/Hausse-Scarecrow-Sculpture-Deterrents-Repellent/dp/B09QGDLC3Z https://www.amazon.com/Hausse-Scarecrow-Sculpture-Deterrents... It's also cheaper, looks better and protect a much larger area.
- saagarjha 3y agoRight up until they realize it never moves?
- aziaziazi 3y agoA friend of mine got a pond with fishes in his garden, that longed acted (unfortunately for the fishes) as a food store for herons migrating. He then used a fake heron that worked pretty well the first year, but not the second. Next years he moved the plastic heron every couple weeks during the period he knows they comes and apparently this works. He’s from Europe and use his own experience but apparently this site may help for US residents https://explorer.audubon.org/explore/species/1387/great-blue-heron/migration https://explorer.audubon.org/explore/species/1387/great-blue...
- BoxOfRain 3y agoI went to university by the sea in a town known for its pterodactyl-like seagulls. Not only were the sculptures ineffective the real hawks they hired to scare the gulls apparently got turfed out by them! You could always tell who the freshers were on sight, they were the only people who didn't know you don't eat outside without suitable cover.
- Fiahil 3y agoIt doesn't take a lot of effort to research potential predator/competitors for seagulls and then hold trials on what works. There's a lot of options, and if the gang doesn't seem intimidated by your choice of predators, invent one. I'm sure this would be a very interesting project for any student!
- joe__f 3y agoI think they know. I definitely think they know when they crap on your head.
- AndrewOMartin 3y agoLife, uh, finds a way.
- anonymous344 3y ago"if something isn't working, it does not mean we should stop selling it" -big pharma
- quickthrower2 3y agoIs this an omen for Twitter?
- quercusa 3y agoMaybe if it were pigeons.
- prody 3y agoI wish people would stop posting paywalled links.
- sparrowInHand 3y agoWe could build websites from snippets of paywalled links. Just using them as resource for something usefull.
- Digit-Al 3y agoI have the following bookmarklet saved. When I hit a paywall that can't be defeated by readerview I use this: "javascript:window.open('://archive.is/'+window.location.href.replace(window.location.search,''))" (Put "https" before the "://" - I couldn't work out how to prevent it being turned into a URL otherwise.)
- prody 3y agoI know how to bypass it, but websites should see a dropoff of clicks under paywall if it is to be discouraged. I do pay for writing that I know and like, don't get me wrong, but if the NYT want to have a member-only website, so be it.
- glenstein 3y agoI found this to be frustratingly light on detail. The most obvious question, the question hanging over basically every sentence: don't they, uh, hurt? How do you incorporate spikes into a nest without living a life of constantly being pricked? It does mention that Antwerp magpies have a special use where spikes are outward pointing, effectively helping to create a bunker keeping predators away. It also says something frustratingly vague about spikes being bent "inward" and vaguely referencing structural support, which evokes an image of the pokey from Matilda. But, this article creates the feeling that you can only get from the internet, a feeling like you're in a room with a thousand people but also with nobody. Because the obvious question, well, if you pressed your hand down on such a nest, would it be spiky? If so, is the life of a bird relying on these for a nest a torturous life of constantly choosing its steps carefully in a nest that's a blend of spikes and ordinary debris? Is there some creative design that they have resorted to that mitigates this? Are they just light enough that they can do some bird equivalent of the human laying on a bed of spikes trick? Maybe the statistical average of all the different angles of the spikes, when arranged into a meshy nest, is such that the "bed" has an average consistency that's bearable to the birds? It's like all of the normal questions I would want to ask, but the only specific comments in the article are about things that appear to be unusual special cases.
- davidgerard 3y agothe paper: https://www.hetnatuurhistorisch.nl/fileadmin/user_upload/documents-nmr/Publicaties/Deinsea/Deinsea_21/Deinsea_21_17_25_2023_Hiemstra_et_al.pdf https://www.hetnatuurhistorisch.nl/fileadmin/user_upload/doc...
- __MatrixMan__ 3y agoThe relevant part is in the discussion section towards the end. These nests aren't exclusively made of spikes. Often it's just the roofs, which serve to defend against attack by other birds but which don't have support the nest builder.
- sitkack 3y ago
- davidgerard 3y agoHere's the actual paper (in English): https://www.hetnatuurhistorisch.nl/fileadmin/user_upload/documents-nmr/Publicaties/Deinsea/Deinsea_21/Deinsea_21_17_25_2023_Hiemstra_et_al.pdf https://www.hetnatuurhistorisch.nl/fileadmin/user_upload/doc...
- dreamcompiler 3y agoKinda reminds me of how some older people would pick up their prescriptions at my Dad's pharmacy and tell him "Don't give me any of those child-proof caps. I don't have any children at home to open them for me."
- msla 3y agoContinuing tangent: The Optum RX mail-order pharmacy has caps where both sides can be the "bottom" and screw onto the bottle, but one side is childproof and the other is just a normal screw attachment. Since they come with the childproof side of the cap engaged, this does present the bootstrapping problem of getting the bottle open to begin with, but thereafter you can just use the other side of the cap.
- kube-system 3y agoI believe those bottles are common at many US pharmacies these days.
- SoftTalker 3y agoI've heard of these but never seen one. I don't have any prescriptions though.
- Zancarius 3y agoThey're pretty common. I had a sinus infection earlier this year that wouldn't go away and had to get some antibiotics. I picked up the RX from a local Walmart pharmacy (closer to where I live) and they use the same double-sided caps. But again, it's like the other OP said: The childproof side is the one that they put on first which could present an issue for older people. I'd imagine you could ask them not to do that, though. I never really thought about it.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ogou 3y ago[flagged]
- fknorangesite 3y agoBecause it is interesting.
- apgwoz 3y agoThe bird is a hacker.
- tradertef 3y agoBirds are not real.
- falcor84 3y agoThis sounds like a particularly useful adaptation for shrikes[0], so they can impale their prey directly into their "dining room". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrike
- jrmg 3y agoI have a shed in my backyard that contains a hobby electronics workbench. A couple of years ago, I could swear that I was going through through hole 104 capacitors faster than I could reconcile. Around this time I noticed that a vent hole in the side of the shed was uncovered, and likely had been for some time, which I fixed. A few months later I was doing a good spring cleaning, and I found in the eaves of the shed a nest made mostly of long pine needles (from outside the shed), but with a substantial spattering of through-hole components too! A bird had found the broken vent, and made a home in the shed using whatever ‘sticks’ were handy to build its nest. Unfortunately I probably blocked it off from its home when I repaired the vent. I’m glad to say no eggs or dead baby chicks were in it when I found it…
- incahoots 3y agoGood on you for following up on the nest to determine the potential aftermath.
- huseyinkeles 3y agothat sounds really interesting, do you by any chance have a picture of it? would really love to see
- jrmg 3y agoI wish I did! Unfortunately it was above head height, and I had it half dismantled (‘What are all these pine needles doing up here?! And - wait - capacitors?!’) before I realized what it was.
- pryelluw 3y agoYou had a birduino flying in for components. :D
- busyant 3y agoMy recollection is many birds use their nests for 2 to 4 weeks, so maybe it was finished with your capacitors by the time you found them. I love this story.
- huehehue 3y agoThis reminds me of an art project that I've wanted to do for a long time -- turning anti-homeless fixtures into furniture, or augmenting the fixtures to be comfortable. For example, some sloped areas have spikes to prevent folks from reclining or laying down, but it would be possible to build a chair/bed that's held in place by those very spikes.