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A Nest and a Half: Homes of Resourceful Birds
Why are we talking about this???
We love telling you about the interesting world of animals.
Birds are amazing creatures. The derisive phrase „bird brain“ is actually a myth. It turns out that a lot of the stuff in old textbooks is not just outdated, it’s downright wrong. A century ago, Ludwig Edinger laid the foundations of neuroanatomy: a kind of geography of the brain that maps its parts and describes what each does. Edinger’s work was extraordinary for its time, but since then many new approaches have emerged and we have accumulated infinitely more data (information).
Here's what he noticed: the bird brain was small. It also didn't have folds (like a human's), but was made up entirely of subcortical nuclei (parts that in humans are under the cerebral cortex). From this, he concluded that birds were probably pretty stupid.
And he was wrong! Subcortical nuclei are extremely important for a number of things, including learning. Birds actually have quite complex behaviors in terms of communication, navigation, and learning. Just think of trained game birds!
Resilient even in the most difficult situations
It is not easy to adapt to particularly difficult conditions. There is nothing more difficult and terrifying than war. But birds manage to adapt even to this. In Ukraine, in many places above the ground there are not just street cables, as we are used to in Bulgarian cities. This war is being fought with drones. To make it more difficult to stop them from a distance, soldiers control them with optical fibers. They are infinitely thin (like threads) and remain entangled in fine networks like shimmering artificial spider webs above the ground.
Because they are almost transparent (but they sparkle in the sun!), they are also dangerous. They can be a trap for entangled birds. But smart birds are learning not only to live with them, but also to use them. Experts are watching in amazement as optical fibers become the latest material for building nests!
Resourceful and extraordinary
There are many more interesting examples in the bird world of resourceful architects who build their homes out of anything. The satin (blue) bowerbird from Australia, in addition to its interesting name, also has a rather remarkable habit. It builds bird „bowers“ out of blue things: packaging, caps: the bluer the better. They are not nests for living and looking after the little birds, but rather bachelor quarters. It is believed that because the males are black with a shiny blue tint to their feathers, the blue things make them stand out in the eyes of female birds. The females visit the blue bower and if they like how nicely it is decorated, they may even agree to start a family!
BUT these are far from all examples of bizarre birdhouses!
There is a species of weaver bird in Africa that lives in colonies of… several hundred birds in one giant nest!
Golden-headed cisticolas in Australia weave their nests from spider webs like skilled weavers.
The black kite is a European bird that nests in piles of… garbage! It doesn’t sound super cozy, but these types of birds are actually very interesting to scientists. For example, the type of packaging can tell the story of when and where nesting habits changed in a given area.
The sizes are also interesting: the bald eagle's nests reach 1.5 to 3.5 meters (the size of a small closet), and the hummingbird's are so small that they are mistaken for a knot on the bark of a tree.
But birds are interesting creatures!
©2026 ST News
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