It seems likely to me that the birds have suffered by these spikes and repurpose them as much for the message they send to avian predators as their structural merits. It is like humans wearing the head of a wolf or other things to communicate they are a threat to would be interlopers.
But for the magpies, there was an additional layer of intrigue; not only were the birds using the spikes to build nests, but it’s possible they were also employing the devices for their intended purpose—to ward off other birds. “It’s a very natural behavior,” Hiemstra says. “We think these spikes are for nest defense."
Right, my point is to push a more complex psychological truth, obviously they aren’t too hindered by these “defenses” if they can dismantle them and reuse them, instead their value is more symbolic, and if i dare, cultural
Researchers are doing all kinds of cognitive studies on how birds (and other animals) use tools. Has anyone looked into the potential impacts (good and bad) for wide scale introduction of proven tools for use by other animals?
Off the top of my head, if a tool is made of plastic for example, we’d be littering our environments with questionable trash.
But conceptually, what’s the downside to leave a huge pile of defensive materials like bird spikes in the forest to help promote nest health?
Stopping short of given them weapons of course. (Shout out to the other comment about training animals to dismantle barbed wire.)
> Has anyone looked into the potential impacts (good and bad) for wide scale introduction of proven tools for use by other animals?
That is interesting. What if we designed tools for use by corvids?
> conceptually, what’s the downside to leave a huge pile of defensive materials like bird spikes in the forest to help promote nest health?
We'd be supporting one species, the prey, over the other, the predator. Why? Do we mean to apply vegan principles to animals? What happens to the predators? How do animal rights apply? Conceptually, it's really a difficult question.
If we kill enough of a kind it is okay to help them.
Where I live we have enough slugs to feed thousands of hedgehogs but they don't understand traffic. Therefore it is fine to build luxury hotels for them.
The "leaving ecosystems alone" ship sailed almost everywhere on Earth tens of thousands of years ago. Humans have always been a part of, and had impacts upon, the ecosystems we've lived in. Certainly moreso in recent centuries.
Not to say that further interventions will be helpful in "reestablishing balance".
Even the concept of "balance" or homeostasis has long been recognized to not really exist in any ecosystem.
I agree, but I would be curious about cases where nature could reclaim habitat faster if we give it some tools for the job. I can't really think of what those tools might be off hand though--apart from some kind of weapon/disease that better keeps humans away at marginal detriment to the user/host.
>I agree, but I would be curious about cases where nature could reclaim habitat faster if we give it some tools for the job. I can't really think of what those tools might be off hand though--apart from some kind of weapon/disease that better keeps humans away at marginal detriment to the user/host.
That's an interesting line of thought. The only thing that comes to mind is something like giving them fancy hats or paintjobs to encourage more reproductive success in declining species.
One could also imagine releasing a virus which reprogrammed wildlife genomes for resistance against some toxin that we had previously introduced into the environment (ideally we would also stop introducing the toxin...).
But none of these things come down to "heres a tool for you to use". Golly I wish I could come up with some technology that would help the woodpeckers better hunt invasive pine beetles--the forests around me are looking pretty rough--but that's a bit too fantastical to hope for.
Last summer I made an attempt at befriending a crow. It actually went pretty well, but the treasures that he brought me blew my mind:
* French fries
* Cooked pasta, maybe baked ziti?
* BBQ ribs, but just the bone with some sauce on it
* Chicken nuggets
* One dead bird, conveniently opened for me
* Several whole dead baby chicks
* One baby chick's head
I stopped feeding it after it kept leaving us, and my neighbor, the dead birds, and it was fowling (ha) up the water in her bird bath. It loved blueberries, cat food, pepitas, and walnuts. It did not like apples and would toss them aside.
I would shake my car keys when I put the food out, and it would show up a few minutes later, but I never figured out if it just saw me or heard the keys.
Interesting but I have a hard time imagining how a nest made of anti-bird spikes could be comfortable. Do they actually find it to be nice? I guess corvids are super smart and wouldn't accidentally get tricked into making an uncomfortable nest due to man made materials...
I saw an osprey pull a three-foot fragment of steel wire out of a wire rope on a tramp steamer one time. Damndest thing you ever saw, he kept circling and grabbing at this cable with his talons and I thought he was attacking or something, but I got my camera up in time to see him fly off with this twist of wire as long as his wingspan, pulled up under him like a fish. They love human detritus as structural material in their nests, which can be six feet across and four deep.
> For the crows, the spikes seem purely structural, a material used to fashion a solid foundation. In both crow nests, the wires were incorporated into the base–interwoven with the points facing inward, below where a softer nest cup would sit. But for the magpies, there was an additional layer of intrigue; not only were the birds using the spikes to build nests, but it’s possible they were also employing the devices for their intended purpose—to ward off other birds.
The article says the birds make different nest configurations, with one incorporating a softer cup layer on top of the spiky layer made with the spikes and another configuration using the spikes as part of a dome on top of the nest.
It would be interesting to determine whether the serum cortisol differs between those living in spoke nests versus those without.
My assumption is that it is indeed elevated, as the “residents” are constantly mindful of their movements (and therefore more stressed) to avoid being poked.
My take is its less so about being physically comfortable, but there is a different type of comfort by the protection of the nest from predators. It's like being uncomfortable to have peace of bird mind, in other words.
It is because most pigeons we see in cities are rock pigeon and were usually making their nest in cliff, crevases and rock formation[1]. Not in tree. Therefore, they never needed to make such artfully crafted nest since the rock was already providing enough shelter.
This is also why they are very adapted to live in cities, because our concrete jungles are actually closer (in their verticality, materials, and relative lack of trees) to mountainous terrain than to a jungle.
I've heard it said that the terrible nests are more to stop the eggs from rolling away. Apparently it was easier to evolve the ability to go get a stick than make square eggs.
We don't have too many rock pigeons out in the country where I live, but we do have plenty of robins (American Robin / Turdus migratorius, to be precise), and those have to be in contention for world's dumbest nest builders.
So the author makes a thesis statement then contradicts in the body. So great. Love birds, but hate emotional manipulation.
If you feel bad, your online time is better spent on working to buy land outside of cities and letting it go wild. Cities are for primarily for people to live in. And many bird species have adapted to live with people already. So the claim is dubious. Infact Birds are very adaptable, so adaptable people have to put spikes up...to which the birds have adapted to. Actual parqueets live in England for example thanks to people feeding them. But don't feed the rats...
Well we've used pigeons fr missile guidance before [0], and for
messaging [1], so birds have a firm place in the military including
having their own special units [2]
More generally, the history of warfare is all about taking the enemy's
resources and using them as weapons against the foe. This will be a
defining feature of future cyberwar and AI - everything we build to
"protect ourselves" will at some point be repurposed to advantage an
enemy.
Sadly Wikipedia doesn't describe a specific mechanism that helps pigeons to navigate. I wonder do pigeons simply fly high enough that they can see hundred miles around?
Every day they build a mesh network and relay some message. The message seems to be very similar every day but a few hundred km away it is completely different.
Dolphin's were trained to bypass enemy underwater defenses to plant explosives on enemy ships while they were in there home port. They were also used to find mines and other underwater devices to be disarmed.
Most birds just aren't big enough to do real damage to barbed wire or razor wire defenses. Now if you could somehow train the birds to harass a herd of cattle into running down the fence, that might work. Sort of like the Hitchcock movie The Birds.
They work like springs in the mattress and they add the fluff to the top. Additional benefits are that the spikes don't get chewed by rodents and remain there for the following year
My gf has a small very sterile scarcely decorated living room. A mouse chose to live under the fake fireplace. The funny part is that she has 7 cats. When they aren't looking he steals their cat food and drinks their water.
I also see a cat hunt tiny mice on a tiny strip of grass in the middle of a busy intersection. Apparently this is a great spot for a nest, in the middle of large roaring vehicles that kill everything on their way.
"Why a four-year-old child could understand this report. Run out and find me a four-year-old child. I can't make head or tail out of it."
--Groucho Marx as Rufus T. Firefly, "Duck Soup"
When my daughter was 4 or 5 and down in bed with 39 C fever, I was having trouble opening her bottle of ibuprofen syrup. Child proof cap of course, so too hard for a 29 year old.
So I heard her - barely speaking because of the fever - "daddy let me help you". I brought the bottle to her bed and of course she opened it the first try.
I never understood this, I assumed it was geriatric people complaining because they literally don't have the strength to push down and turn, not that normal abled bodied adults were too dumb to figure out that you have to push down and turn, especially since the instructions are on the lid itself.
>And, that shit works for you on the first try every time?
Within the first couple of times at least unless it's physically defective or something. It's not really something able bodied people have problems with.
It seems likely to me that the birds have suffered by these spikes and repurpose them as much for the message they send to avian predators as their structural merits. It is like humans wearing the head of a wolf or other things to communicate they are a threat to would be interlopers.
In the OP:
But for the magpies, there was an additional layer of intrigue; not only were the birds using the spikes to build nests, but it’s possible they were also employing the devices for their intended purpose—to ward off other birds. “It’s a very natural behavior,” Hiemstra says. “We think these spikes are for nest defense."
Right, my point is to push a more complex psychological truth, obviously they aren’t too hindered by these “defenses” if they can dismantle them and reuse them, instead their value is more symbolic, and if i dare, cultural
That’s exactly what they are, it says as much on the box.
Crows going for a Mad Max aesthetic for defense and deterrence seems both incredible and simultaneously unsurprisingly.
Researchers are doing all kinds of cognitive studies on how birds (and other animals) use tools. Has anyone looked into the potential impacts (good and bad) for wide scale introduction of proven tools for use by other animals?
Off the top of my head, if a tool is made of plastic for example, we’d be littering our environments with questionable trash.
But conceptually, what’s the downside to leave a huge pile of defensive materials like bird spikes in the forest to help promote nest health?
Stopping short of given them weapons of course. (Shout out to the other comment about training animals to dismantle barbed wire.)
> Has anyone looked into the potential impacts (good and bad) for wide scale introduction of proven tools for use by other animals?
That is interesting. What if we designed tools for use by corvids?
> conceptually, what’s the downside to leave a huge pile of defensive materials like bird spikes in the forest to help promote nest health?
We'd be supporting one species, the prey, over the other, the predator. Why? Do we mean to apply vegan principles to animals? What happens to the predators? How do animal rights apply? Conceptually, it's really a difficult question.
If we kill enough of a kind it is okay to help them.
Where I live we have enough slugs to feed thousands of hedgehogs but they don't understand traffic. Therefore it is fine to build luxury hotels for them.
Unless there's an imbalance caused by human activity, I'd say we are better off leaving the birds and their ecosystems alone.
The "leaving ecosystems alone" ship sailed almost everywhere on Earth tens of thousands of years ago. Humans have always been a part of, and had impacts upon, the ecosystems we've lived in. Certainly moreso in recent centuries.
Not to say that further interventions will be helpful in "reestablishing balance".
Even the concept of "balance" or homeostasis has long been recognized to not really exist in any ecosystem.
I agree, but I would be curious about cases where nature could reclaim habitat faster if we give it some tools for the job. I can't really think of what those tools might be off hand though--apart from some kind of weapon/disease that better keeps humans away at marginal detriment to the user/host.
Don’t we already do this with artificial reefs?
>I agree, but I would be curious about cases where nature could reclaim habitat faster if we give it some tools for the job. I can't really think of what those tools might be off hand though--apart from some kind of weapon/disease that better keeps humans away at marginal detriment to the user/host.
That's an interesting line of thought. The only thing that comes to mind is something like giving them fancy hats or paintjobs to encourage more reproductive success in declining species.
There's a bit of interesting work that's done re: introducing cloned organisms from decades past (from a time when biodiversity wasn't as strained), e.g. https://www.fws.gov/press-release/2024-11/advancements-black...
One could also imagine releasing a virus which reprogrammed wildlife genomes for resistance against some toxin that we had previously introduced into the environment (ideally we would also stop introducing the toxin...).
But none of these things come down to "heres a tool for you to use". Golly I wish I could come up with some technology that would help the woodpeckers better hunt invasive pine beetles--the forests around me are looking pretty rough--but that's a bit too fantastical to hope for.
For a lot of animals like crows, their ecosystems are "human activity" now.
Last summer I made an attempt at befriending a crow. It actually went pretty well, but the treasures that he brought me blew my mind:
I stopped feeding it after it kept leaving us, and my neighbor, the dead birds, and it was fowling (ha) up the water in her bird bath. It loved blueberries, cat food, pepitas, and walnuts. It did not like apples and would toss them aside.I would shake my car keys when I put the food out, and it would show up a few minutes later, but I never figured out if it just saw me or heard the keys.
Here's some video clips of my buddy:
https://i.imgur.com/4ZQb7L3.mp4 https://i.imgur.com/B4DBLxg.mp4
edit: make the links clickable
They could become dependent on those tools and then if humans stop, the animals will die the tool supply drops.
I'm impressed by this crow's beak-work: all the spikes are oriented inward and covered in leaves, making that nest very strong and not spiky at all.
Interesting but I have a hard time imagining how a nest made of anti-bird spikes could be comfortable. Do they actually find it to be nice? I guess corvids are super smart and wouldn't accidentally get tricked into making an uncomfortable nest due to man made materials...
I saw an osprey pull a three-foot fragment of steel wire out of a wire rope on a tramp steamer one time. Damndest thing you ever saw, he kept circling and grabbing at this cable with his talons and I thought he was attacking or something, but I got my camera up in time to see him fly off with this twist of wire as long as his wingspan, pulled up under him like a fish. They love human detritus as structural material in their nests, which can be six feet across and four deep.
TFA addresses this directly:
> For the crows, the spikes seem purely structural, a material used to fashion a solid foundation. In both crow nests, the wires were incorporated into the base–interwoven with the points facing inward, below where a softer nest cup would sit. But for the magpies, there was an additional layer of intrigue; not only were the birds using the spikes to build nests, but it’s possible they were also employing the devices for their intended purpose—to ward off other birds.
Spikes are only uncomfortable if you sit on the spiky end.
The article says the birds make different nest configurations, with one incorporating a softer cup layer on top of the spiky layer made with the spikes and another configuration using the spikes as part of a dome on top of the nest.
Relative to their traditional construction material, twigs, it’s probably no worse.
It would be interesting to determine whether the serum cortisol differs between those living in spoke nests versus those without.
My assumption is that it is indeed elevated, as the “residents” are constantly mindful of their movements (and therefore more stressed) to avoid being poked.
My take is its less so about being physically comfortable, but there is a different type of comfort by the protection of the nest from predators. It's like being uncomfortable to have peace of bird mind, in other words.
It's more about sending a message than the comfort. Up the tweet!
And then there are the doves, birds notorious for making the most lackluster of nests. They will lay eggs right on top of the spikes.
When you see the nests, it is amazing that doves / pigeons exist at all. They must survive out of spite and numbers.
Check out /r/stupiddovenests on reddit for some good examples.
It is because most pigeons we see in cities are rock pigeon and were usually making their nest in cliff, crevases and rock formation[1]. Not in tree. Therefore, they never needed to make such artfully crafted nest since the rock was already providing enough shelter. This is also why they are very adapted to live in cities, because our concrete jungles are actually closer (in their verticality, materials, and relative lack of trees) to mountainous terrain than to a jungle.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_dove#Distribution_and_hab...
I've heard it said that the terrible nests are more to stop the eggs from rolling away. Apparently it was easier to evolve the ability to go get a stick than make square eggs.
Wombats were so close
Ah, interesting, that makes sense. I will still laugh at their "nests", though. :-)
However, some pigeons are a little extra:
https://www.boredpanda.com/pigeon-poppies-nest-remembrance-d...
We don't have too many rock pigeons out in the country where I live, but we do have plenty of robins (American Robin / Turdus migratorius, to be precise), and those have to be in contention for world's dumbest nest builders.
>When you see the nests, it is amazing that doves / pigeons exist at all. They must survive out of spite and numbers.
They've basically evolved past the point of needing nests but still have some basic instinct to create them.
Pretty sure pigeons exist entirely thanks to NYC. :)
Or London
So the author makes a thesis statement then contradicts in the body. So great. Love birds, but hate emotional manipulation. If you feel bad, your online time is better spent on working to buy land outside of cities and letting it go wild. Cities are for primarily for people to live in. And many bird species have adapted to live with people already. So the claim is dubious. Infact Birds are very adaptable, so adaptable people have to put spikes up...to which the birds have adapted to. Actual parqueets live in England for example thanks to people feeding them. But don't feed the rats...
Could birds be trained to tear down military barbed wire & razor wire defenses?
(Or are the birds here AWOL from their training camp?)
While corvids can use tools, I think they'd probably struggle with a pair of wire cutters
Team work, each one holds one end. :)
Mounted on a coconut.
To the laboratory!
obviously lasers, corvidae with lasers
And that was how everybody on the North hemisphere went blind...
Well we've used pigeons fr missile guidance before [0], and for messaging [1], so birds have a firm place in the military including having their own special units [2]
More generally, the history of warfare is all about taking the enemy's resources and using them as weapons against the foe. This will be a defining feature of future cyberwar and AI - everything we build to "protect ourselves" will at some point be repurposed to advantage an enemy.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_pigeon
[2] https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/warfares-unsung-pi...
Geese have also been employed for security including by military forces.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guard_goose
Sadly Wikipedia doesn't describe a specific mechanism that helps pigeons to navigate. I wonder do pigeons simply fly high enough that they can see hundred miles around?
They use magnetism AFAIK
(And) smell apparently (sample size of one..)
https://youtu.be/t4cw-Av2Pk4?feature=shared (Around 28min mark)
Every day they build a mesh network and relay some message. The message seems to be very similar every day but a few hundred km away it is completely different.
Dolphin's were trained to bypass enemy underwater defenses to plant explosives on enemy ships while they were in there home port. They were also used to find mines and other underwater devices to be disarmed.
Most birds just aren't big enough to do real damage to barbed wire or razor wire defenses. Now if you could somehow train the birds to harass a herd of cattle into running down the fence, that might work. Sort of like the Hitchcock movie The Birds.
Cockies would gladly do the job for free. https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/rga3pf/cockatoo_...
reminds me of the BE UNGOVERNABLE dog https://www.reddit.com/r/blursedimages/comments/u8o03f/blurs...
Are there other good examples of animals subverting restrictions?
Checkout the image at the top of this page! (I don't know if the blog itself is any good. I'm just posting it for the image!)
https://sayyesmore.com/blog/bethebird
That's such a great pic. I wonder what the sign is supposed to be for, it's not like birds respect signs. What is it telling humans to do?
Oh, if the sign is real, it's certainly a joke.
People do create those a lot more than one would expect.
It's so the police arrest and cite the bird for breaking the law.
haha great :-D
Cockatoos just rip them out for fun. https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/rga3pf/cockatoo_...
I wonder how much of that is their sense of humor. It is quite obviously hilarious and he appears to be removing all of them.
They work like springs in the mattress and they add the fluff to the top. Additional benefits are that the spikes don't get chewed by rodents and remain there for the following year
“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” ― Marcus Aurelius
Fortunately, I only use these to protect the wasps from the sparrows, and the robins from themselves.
So the corvids have developed punk?
I find it unfair that there is no Audubon location in Audubon, NJ :p
Saved the link for more bird news.
Both were independently named for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_James_Audubon !
Perhaps the spikes are good for keeping predator birds away from the nest?
Reminds me of the rats we used to have in our garage, that had built nests from our dryer lint.
Our dryer lint was largely cat hair.
My gf has a small very sterile scarcely decorated living room. A mouse chose to live under the fake fireplace. The funny part is that she has 7 cats. When they aren't looking he steals their cat food and drinks their water.
I also see a cat hunt tiny mice on a tiny strip of grass in the middle of a busy intersection. Apparently this is a great spot for a nest, in the middle of large roaring vehicles that kill everything on their way.
Excellent, stick it to the man!
they're mocking us....
"...the street finds its own uses for things"
And we will never run out of uses for WG quotes. Or +1s :-)
Life, uh, finds a way.
In other news, only small children can easily open the anti child caps on medicine bottles...
And in disturbingly relevant news from 1933...
"Why a four-year-old child could understand this report. Run out and find me a four-year-old child. I can't make head or tail out of it." --Groucho Marx as Rufus T. Firefly, "Duck Soup"
I wasn't quoting entertainment though.
When my daughter was 4 or 5 and down in bed with 39 C fever, I was having trouble opening her bottle of ibuprofen syrup. Child proof cap of course, so too hard for a 29 year old.
So I heard her - barely speaking because of the fever - "daddy let me help you". I brought the bottle to her bed and of course she opened it the first try.
I never understood this, I assumed it was geriatric people complaining because they literally don't have the strength to push down and turn, not that normal abled bodied adults were too dumb to figure out that you have to push down and turn, especially since the instructions are on the lid itself.
Some of them are also squeeze caps so their fingers might be too shaky
And, that shit works for you on the first try every time?
Do you practice daily?
>And, that shit works for you on the first try every time?
Within the first couple of times at least unless it's physically defective or something. It's not really something able bodied people have problems with.
It is amazing how quotable that movie is even today.
(2023)
Seemed familiar…