Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Aude-Florian Hiemstra, a biologist, and a magpie nest made of spikes. Scientists have found clever birds have started using ...

Some bird nests are getting pretty metal. Crows and magpies in Belgium and the Netherlands have constructed their nests using anti-bird spikes ― metal skewers that people place on buildings and ...

Picture a bird’s nest. Chances are, what comes to mind is a woven basket of twigs and plant fibers—you might not imagine a crown of metal spines. But that’s exactly how some crows and magpies in ...

The magpies placed the spikes so they protruded outward from the roofed nest, in order to discourage other birds from going in and eating the eggs or chicks. Magpies and other related birds regularly ...

Two summers ago, a patient looking out his Belgian-hospital window spied in a tree an odd, abandoned magpie nest of plastic and wire. He had, by coincidence, just read a newspaper article about a ...