23 July 2023
In case you missed it …
When Auke-Florian Hiemstra published Bird Nests Made From Anti-Bird Spikes on 11 July 2023, the news spread like wildfire. The Guardian and the BBC immediately announced his report that Eurasian magpies and carrion crows incorporated spikes in their nests in the Netherlands and Scotland. The birds’ ironic re-use of our threatening material captured the Internet’s imagination.
Are the birds thumbing their noses (beaks) at us when they use anti-bird spikes? For the most part, no.
In the city it’s pretty common to see plastic in nests. For example this pigeon (nesting on top of anti-bird spikes!) included a length of red plastic wire in its nest. Notice the pigeon’s head behind the bend in the wire.
Hiemstra (@AukeFlorian) explains that Eurasian magpies (Pica pica) look for spiky things, like thorn branches, to protect the top of their dome-shaped nests. But thorn trees are hard to find in the city so …
His tweet thread below includes photos and videos of other birds’ plastic use. If you aren’t on Twitter, click here to see his entire thread.
So nesting birds aren’t thumbing their noses at us but parrots probably are. In Australia, where cockatoos live in the wild, they show their attitude toward our anti-bird attempts. Take that you nasty spikes! Hah!
Magpies and crows use our plastics in creative ways. Parrots mess with our minds. 😉
(photos from Wikimedia Commons, tweet and videos embedded. Click on the captions to see the originals)
I’m not the only one! Two years in a row, a pair of finches has built a nest in the anti-bird spike the previous owner installed.
“Spikes?! We don’t care about your stinkin’ spikes!”
The cockatoo video!! Hilarious. Thanks for the post Kate. (The pigeons on the nails and screws is something I would have never believed.)