#bird news

[reasonsforhope]

Humans are so cute. They think they can outsmart birds. They place nasty metal spikes on rooftops and ledges to prevent birds from nesting there.

It’s a classic human trick known in urban design as “evil architecture”: designing a place in a way that’s meant to deter others. Think of the city benches you see segmented by bars to stop homeless people sleeping there.

But birds are genius rebels. Not only are they undeterred by evil architecture, they actually use it to their advantage, according to a new Dutch study published in the journal Deinsea.

Crows and magpies, it turns out, are learning to rip strips of anti-bird spikes off of buildings and use them to build their nests. It’s an incredible addition to the growing body of evidence about the intelligence of birds, so wrongly maligned as stupid that “bird-brained” is still commonly used as an insult...

Magpies also use anti-bird spikes for their nests. In 2021, a hospital patient in Antwerp, Belgium, looked out the window and noticed a huge magpie’s nest in a tree in the courtyard. Biologist Auke-Florian Hiemstra of Leiden-based Naturalis Biodiversity Center, one of the study’s authors, went to collect the nest and found that it was made out of 50 meters of anti-bird strips, containing no fewer than 1,500 metal spikes.

Hiemstra describes the magpie nest as “an impregnable fortress.”

Pictured: A huge magpie nest made out of 1,500 metal spikes.

Magpies are known to build roofs over their nests to prevent other birds from stealing their eggs and young. Usually, they scrounge around in nature for thorny plants or spiky branches to form the roof. But city birds don’t need to search for the perfect branch — they can just use the anti-bird spikes that humans have so kindly put at their disposal.

“The magpies appear to be using the pins exactly the same way we do: to keep other birds away from their nest,” Hiemstra said.

Another urban magpie nest, this one from Scotland, really shows off the roof-building tactic:

Pictured: A nest from Scotland shows how urban magpies are using anti-bird spikes to construct a roof meant to protect their young and eggs from predators.

Birds had already been spotted using upward-pointing anti-bird spikes as foundations for nests. In 2016, the so-called Parkdale Pigeon became Twitter-famous for refusing to give up when humans removed her first nest and installed spikes on her chosen nesting site, the top of an LCD monitor on a subway platform in Melbourne. The avian architect rebelled and built an even better home there, using the spikes as a foundation to hold her nest more securely in place.

...Hiemstra’s study is the first to show that birds, adapting to city life, are learning to seek out and use our anti-bird spikes as their nesting material. Pretty badass, right?

The genius of birds — and other animals we underestimate

It’s a well-established fact that many bird species are highly intelligent. Members of the corvid family, which includes crows and magpies, are especially renowned for their smarts. Crows can solve complex puzzles, while magpies can pass the “mirror test” — the classic test that scientists use to determine if a species is self-aware.

Studies show that some birds have evolved cognitive skills similar to our own: They have amazing memories, remembering for months the thousands of different hiding places where they’ve stashed seeds, and they use their own experiences to predict the behavior of other birds, suggesting they’ve got some theory of mind.

And, as author Jennifer Ackerman details in The Genius of Birds, birds are brilliant at using tools. Black palm cockatoos use twigs as drumsticks, tapping out a beat on a tree trunk to get a female’s attention. Jays use sticks as spears to attack other birds...

Birds have also been known to use human tools to their advantage. When carrion crows want to crack a walnut, for example, they position the nut on a busy road, wait for a passing car to crush the shell, then swoop down to collect the nut and eat it. This behavior has been recorded several times in Japanese crows.

But what’s unique about Hiemstra’s study is that it shows birds using human tools, specifically designed to thwart birds’ plans, in order to thwart our plans instead. We humans try to keep birds away with spikes, and the birds — ingenious rebels that they are — retort: Thanks, humans!

-via Vox, July 26, 2023

[alyona-guseva-art-workshop]

White raven — illustration, cardboard 28.5x36.5 cm

Білий ворон — ілюстрація, картон 28,5х36,5 см

[petnews2day]

Bird flu can jump to mammals. Should we worry?

New Post has been published on https://petn.ws/nPK2s

Bird flu can jump to mammals. Should we worry?

An uncomfortable truth is that there is another influenza pandemic in humankind’s future. Whether it will be a relative of the lethal avian flu strain currently wreaking havoc in bird populations around the globe is anyone’s guess. Because the virus, called H5N1, can be deadly to birds, mammals and people, researchers closely monitor reports of […]

See full article at https://petn.ws/nPK2s #BirdNews

[mafaldaknows]

Bird Bakery, Highland Park Village, Dallas TX , June 20, 2023, 2:23 pm , 99 degrees, 100% steam bath humidity. Straight from the airport.

Really? Again? It’s like she knew I was coming.

So I ordered their “award-winning” carrot cupcake to-go 7 minutes before they closed and found a table outside.

Too much frosting, not enough cake. Gilded walnut to distract the eye from its shortcomings, an awkward and sticky situation from public scrutiny while eating it on the sidewalk in the melting-hot sun. Had to use so many napkins to get through it. SOOOOO messy!

Speaking of messy, three hours later:

🤔😆🥳

[victusinveritas]

[tiny-tf-faces]

ERRATA CORRIGE THE EGGS ARE SEVEN I REPEAT SEVEN

Too many birds! Prepare for bird revolution!

[houseishungry]

Anyone else been having this problem lately?

[northamericanbirder]

from Audubon:

As Spring Shifts Earlier, Many Migrating Birds Are Struggling to Keep Up

"With the climate warming, leaves and blooms are popping out ahead of schedule. A wide-ranging new study shows why this trend is troubling for a variety of bird species."

[king777scorpio]

[postmodernhekimdervish]

[calmandbeautifulmusic]

Beautiful Birds - Ambient Piano Music For Study And Concentration

[petnews2day]

Robin road rage: study shows traffic noise makes birds more aggressive | Birds

New Post has been published on https://petn.ws/5zkC

Robin road rage: study shows traffic noise makes birds more aggressive | Birds

It isn’t just people who get road rage. Robins in the countryside become more aggressive when they hear the sound of traffic, according to a study. Beloved for their plump appearance, proud bearing and sweet song, European robins are actually fiercely competitive creatures, whose calls and behaviours are part of a struggle for territorial dominance […]

See full article at https://petn.ws/5zkC #BirdNews

[giantpetrel]

An 8-million-year-old phorusrhacid trackway shows that terror birds, who were already noted for having a somewhat dromeosaur-like second toe (the same being true for seriemas), held it aloft, possibly for both pinning down prey and as an adaption for fast running.

[reesemh]

CROW HONEYEATER

This bird is critically endangered due to introduced rats. Extensive surveys have only found it in the Parc de la Rivière Bleue area, on the slopes of the Kouakoué, in the Pourina and Ouiné valleys, at Rivière Blanche and on the slopes of Mont Pouédihi and Mt Panie. It is spread throughout the island, though mostly in the south. It is estimated that there are between 50 and 249 birds left.

[robinjay1]

GUYS I MADE A BIRD BLOG!! @birdbianry13 !!