[HN Gopher] Birds Build Nests from Anti-Bird Spikes
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Birds Build Nests from Anti-Bird Spikes
Author : dwighttk
Score : 186 points
Date : 2023-07-16 03:29 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| AndrewOMartin wrote:
| Life, uh, finds a way.
| Fiahil wrote:
| Spikes and other stuff like these never work. You know what does
| ? This : https://www.amazon.com/Hausse-Scarecrow-Sculpture-
| Deterrents...
|
| It's also cheaper, looks better and protect a much larger area.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| There is a grocery store near me with a dove nesting on a light
| fixture directly above the entry. A fake owl is two feet away.
| The dove doesn't care.
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| My city has these kite-like predatory bird -resembling bird-
| scare things on some buildings. Hawk-shaped kite tied on a
| length of string to a building roof. When the wind picks up, it
| animates the kite to look like a predatory bird hovering. Very
| effective.
| mplewis wrote:
| Oh, those are the statues the pigeons sat on and pooped on at
| my last company's patio.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Right up until they realize it never moves?
| aziaziazi wrote:
| A 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...
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| It 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!
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Unless you're reintroducing a native species to the area or
| providing habitat for existing-but-endangered species,
| you're probably going to raise the wrong kind of eyebrows
| with that kind of research.
|
| These researchers say they're rooting for the birds after
| all.
|
| Humans have a long history of solving small problems by
| introducing bigger problems re: introducing non native
| species.
| Fiahil wrote:
| I was thinking about little resin sculptures of birds.
| Not living creatures.
|
| I'm rooting for the birds too, but I'd also like humans
| to stop putting metal spikes on stuff.
| xeonmc wrote:
| Dinosaurs never really went away, they just Moore's law'd
| themselves.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > real hawks they hired to scare the gulls apparently got
| turfed out by them
|
| Lots of raptors, especially falcons, are essentially
| specialised sprint predators and won't pick a fight with
| another bird any more than a cheetah would try to fight a
| hyena.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| Pigeons are rats of the air and seagulls are hyenas of the
| air. Sounds about right. And Canada geese are cobra
| chickens.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| Interestingly, pigeons fly fast and in a straight race
| can outfly many falcons. The falcons rely on a very fast
| stoop from above, slamming talons-first into the target
| bird hard enough to break its neck or even decapitate it.
| scrapcode wrote:
| Looks better? Highly subjective. I have some kind of birds that
| build nests in a corner of my front porch that's about ~18ft
| above ground. I'm not sure a plastic own hanging out up there
| would be the most welcoming.
| prody wrote:
| I wish people would stop posting paywalled links.
| Digit-Al wrote:
| I 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.r
| eplace(window.location.search,''))"
|
| (Put "https" before the "://" - I couldn't work out how to
| prevent it being turned into a URL otherwise.)
| prody wrote:
| I 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.
| sparrowInHand wrote:
| We could build websites from snippets of paywalled links. Just
| using them as resource for something usefull.
| glenstein wrote:
| I 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.
| Retric wrote:
| > you can only get from the internet
|
| It's a NYT article, how exactly is reading it online different
| from reading it in a newspaper?
| davidgerard wrote:
| the paper:
|
| https://www.hetnatuurhistorisch.nl/fileadmin/user_upload/doc...
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| The 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 wrote:
| That is amazing. They are using them for their intended
| purpose, to keep birds away! And those structures look
| post-modern. Hats off to you birds!
| Applejinx wrote:
| Gotta hand it to corvids. They're not doing it by accident,
| they know exactly what they're doing. I don't know what's up
| with the crows that are pointing the spikes inward. Do we have
| self-loathing millenial crows out there? Is it an art statement
| or some kind of metaphor for crow life, to attract gothy crow
| girls?
| EGreg wrote:
| Maybe they're doing it so that predator birds will get cut if
| they enter...
| JackFr wrote:
| Have you ever tried to scratch your back with only a wing?
| StrictDabbler wrote:
| Bird spikes are dull. The goal is not to hurt birds. They just
| create a surface that is less practical to land or rest on.
|
| They do this by being vertical, parallel, and too close
| together for a bird to get a good sideways grip on any one
| spike. They don't prick the birds.
|
| This means they're effectively a forest of highly uniform metal
| twigs.
|
| Ordinary nest building with removed spikes would create a
| surface as comfortable as any other nest. It's not like twigs
| aren't pokey.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| That doesn't mean they can't be cruel, of course. I've seen a
| bird die on these spikes.
| StrictDabbler wrote:
| Absolutely. "Dull" is relative. They're cut-off wire. It
| hasn't been sharpened but it hasn't been dulled.
|
| A bird flying in for a landing can certainly impale itself
| if it doesn't realize the spikes are there. All about speed
| and momentum.
|
| They just not particularly sharp from the perspective of a
| feather-covered animal moving gently through a nest so as
| to not damage the eggs. They aren't needles.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Birds only weigh a few ounces. They're not compressing their
| nests so hard that fairly dull spikes would cut into them.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Another fundamental question not addressed:
|
| > Rows of these sharp metal pins have become a common feature
| of the urban environment, installed on rooftops and ledges to
| discourage birds from perching or nesting on buildings.
|
| Who installs these things and why? Maybe I'm not urban enough,
| but I don't understand why you'd even install these things.
| What's wrong with birds perching on a building?
| quickthrowman wrote:
| They shit _everywhere_. Pigeons especially. A layer of bird
| shit is bad for your health and bad for business.
| strken wrote:
| The most common use near where I live is protecting signs,
| lights, or electronic equipment from bird poo. Second most
| common is protecting whatever is underneath the spikes, like
| car parking, pedestrian paths, or windows. You see them a lot
| in train stations protecting the electronic signs so they
| stay readable, or anything else hung from the roof which
| people might stand under.
|
| Generally birds have plenty of other places to rest where
| they won't be inconvenient to humans. I've never seen anyone
| cover an entire rooftop with spikes.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| I have a rooftop deck on my house. I put up some wooden poles
| to hang some lights on and after my first summer with the
| poles up they were all covered in bird poop.
|
| It's not a problem here in the winter when it rains enough
| that the poop washes away but we can go weeks or months in
| the summer and the accumulation of poop can smell bad.
|
| Some bird spikes on the top of each pole has mostly solved
| the problem.
| yourusername wrote:
| They also defecate on your building. Especially with doves
| this can turn your building nasty looking quickly and
| balconies unuseable.
| Modified3019 wrote:
| I'm going to have to install some screen mesh around the tops
| of the pillars around my home entryway, because birds keep
| perching and trying to build nests there. Just yesterday had
| to remove a house finch nest that appeared the other day. As
| much as I like them, I'm not letting them do that there.
|
| The problem is when birds hang around someplace, they quickly
| cover the ledges, walls and ground with shit.
|
| That and I don't want baby birds screaming at 4am a few
| meters from where I sleep.
| voz_ wrote:
| Trash approach, let the birds be, must you control
| everything?
| [deleted]
| astrodust wrote:
| Pigeons, mostly. They poop on everything and that accumulated
| poop can be a real health hazard.
|
| https://www.nyc.gov/site/doh/health/health-
| topics/pigeon.pag...
|
| If you think birds don't poop a lot remember there are entire
| islands made of bird poop.
|
| https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/nauru
| DANGER_FF_19 wrote:
| [flagged]
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Kinda 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 wrote:
| Continuing 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 wrote:
| I believe those bottles are common at many US pharmacies
| these days.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I've heard of these but never seen one. I don't have any
| prescriptions though.
| Zancarius wrote:
| They'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]
| kube-system wrote:
| They often look like this, note the threads on the top of
| the cap, they can be flipped over and used as a simple
| threaded cap with no child lock:
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Walgr
| een...
| bennyg wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| It 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 wrote:
| This sort of happens in the wild too. Weaverbirds spend their
| life on spiny trees and build their nests on branches of such
| spiny trees.
| anonymous344 wrote:
| "if something isn't working, it does not mean we should stop
| selling it" -big pharma
| chris72205 wrote:
| https://archive.li/2023.07.13-183756/https://www.nytimes.com...
| jrmg wrote:
| I 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...
| pryelluw wrote:
| You had a birduino flying in for components. :D
| huseyinkeles wrote:
| that sounds really interesting, do you by any chance have a
| picture of it? would really love to see
| jrmg wrote:
| I 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.
| incahoots wrote:
| Good on you for following up on the nest to determine the
| potential aftermath.
| busyant wrote:
| My 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.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| https://archive.is/7QMu7
|
| Previous discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36689463
|
| It's hard to forget that hair.
| sschueller wrote:
| What does the NYTimes article add to the previous article at
| naturalis.nl other than a paywall?
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Better pictures. I read the naturalis article and had no real
| clue what I was looking at.
| tilsammans wrote:
| Auke-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
| blitzar wrote:
| [flagged]
| jrockway wrote:
| Guess I can own a cat guilt-free then.
| blitzar wrote:
| Drones have feelings too.
| praptak wrote:
| This makes their achievements even more amazing.
| blitzar wrote:
| Hopefully it was a firmware update and not the machines going
| rouge and collecting up materials to create a sentient army
| of robot birds.
| johnnny wrote:
| They went rouge? As opposed to putting on mascara?
| [deleted]
| TapamN wrote:
| Explaining the joke/reference:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsgnrYog6W0
| falcor84 wrote:
| This 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
| davidgerard wrote:
| Here's the actual paper (in English):
|
| https://www.hetnatuurhistorisch.nl/fileadmin/user_upload/doc...
| joe__f wrote:
| I think they know. I definitely think they know when they crap on
| your head.
| ogou wrote:
| Why post this on Hacker News?
| fknorangesite wrote:
| Because it is interesting.
| apgwoz wrote:
| The bird is a hacker.
| tradertef wrote:
| Birds are not real.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Is this an omen for Twitter?
| quercusa wrote:
| Maybe if it were pigeons.
| huehehue wrote:
| This 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.
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