Crows and Magpies Snatch Anti-Bird Spikes to Build Their Nests | Smart News

Picture a bird’s nest. Chances are, what enters your mind is a woven basket of branches and plant fibers—you may not picture a crown of metal spinal columns. But that’s precisely how some crows and magpies in Europe have actually begun styling their nests.

These creative corvids have actually commandeered anti-bird spikes—the long strips of needle-like rods utilized to ward off birds from roosting on roofs, doorframes or other human-made structures—and started utilizing them as nesting product, according to a brand-new paper released today in the National History Museum Rotterdam’s journal Deinsea.

“Even for me as a nest researcher, these are the craziest bird nests I’ve ever seen,” says Auke-Florian Hiemstra, a biologist at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands, to the Guardian’s Ian Sample.

Apparently, the birds eliminate the spikes from structures, leaving telltale stripes of glue where the metal pieces when were, reports Emily Anthes for the New York Times.

“It’s absolutely fascinating,” Mark Mainwaring, an ornithologist and bird nest scientist at Bangor University in Wales who was not associated with the research study, informs the publication. “It shows just how intuitive these birds are, and it shows a certain amount of flexibility to go out and find these new materials and use them.”

Crows and magpies are among the most intelligent birds. Both types have actually been recorded to recognize their own reflection in a mirror in addition to use tools. Researchers have actually attempted to track magpies with backpack-like gadgets, just to see the birds help each other remove the technology, according to a paper released in 2015. And in November, cognitive researchers reported that crows might comprehend a pattern-forming idea when believed to be distinct to people.

Now, that list of capabilities can consist of repurposing metal spikes—an uncommon method that may settle for the birds, possibly by providing an evolutionary edge, Hiemstra informs the Washington Post’s Adela Suliman. “Animals always look at materials for their own gains,” he says to the publication.

The 2 types appear to be utilizing the spikes in various methods—magpies include the pointed ends dealing with outside to safeguard their domed nests, and crows tend to turn the spikes inward, possibly for structural assistance.

In one example, the scientists determined that a magpie nest outside a healthcare facility in Antwerp, Belgium, consisted of about 165 feet of metal strips and a minimum of 1,500 specific spikes, composes the Times. This ultra-fortified burrow resembles a “bunker for birds,” Hiemstra informs the publication.

But on the other hand, the practice might hurt birds in some situations, Mainwaring says to the Post. The metal spikes might end up being too cold for chicks in the evening, for instance. And using other forms of debris as nesting materials, especially eye-catching, colorful trash, might unintentionally attract predators.

Whatever the trade-offs, birds all over the world are scavenging artificial products to build nests. In a separate paper published this week in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, Mainwaring and a team of colleagues found evidence for nests incorporating human-made products in 176 bird species on every continent except Antarctica. The material discovered in nests consisted of plastic bags, fishing line, sweet wrappers, paper towels, floss, straws and cigarette butts.

In the case of the spike-adorned nests, Hiemstra composes in a tweet that magpies “appear to be using the anti-bird spikes for their nest in exactly the same way we do: to keep other birds away.”

“I’m definitely rooting for the birds,” he says to the Times, “because they deserve a place in the city just like us.”