Anti-Bird Spikes and Golden Spike

Newsletter July 2023Anti-Bird

I read this story.

"They’re Outsmarting US : Birds Build Nests From Anti-Bird Spikes.”

Strips of pins made of sharp metal are used to keep birds away from buildings, but some birds steal them to build their nests. Birds use bird repellent spikes to build their nests.

These are the nests of urban magpies and crows, which are intelligent woodpeckers.

Magpies often build domed nests, roofed with a combination of thorny branches to protect themselves from outside enemies, and they seem to have collected metal spikes to make their spiky nests. Crows seem to have built nests with sharp pins pointing in the opposite direction to the inside of the nest to stabilize the structure. Either way, it shows how intuitive and flexible they are in finding and using materials that are close at hand. They reflect how much trash humans have left behind and suggest that the use of artificial nest materials is becoming more common.

There seem to be several bird nests in the crevices of the house and in the trees on my yard. I can hear the chicks from lower than expected, and I feel as if I could reach into the nests, but I don't. It is clear that I am not an enemy of the birds, as I do not disturb them when they are present. When I look at an absent bird's nest, I am surprised to see that plastic and cigarette packages are used as materials for the nest. It is quite a fine art.

According to this article, tens of thousands of nests made by 176 bird species on every continent except Antarctica contain artificial materials such as plastic bags, cloth strings, fishing line, paper towels, dental floss, rubber bands, and cigarette butts.

Shiny or colorful items may help birds attract mates or may attract the attention of predators. Chemicals in cigarette butts help protect nests from parasites but may be toxic to birds. Chicks may also become entangled in plastic strings and twine that have been introduced into the nest.

In any case, birds are living animals just like us. We have to live while devising ways to secure a place to stay, don't we?

There is another interesting story.

The International Union of Geological Sciences has selected the Crawford Lake Formation in Ontario, Canada, as the reference site for the beginning of the "Anthropocene." The Anthropocene is a new chapter in the Earth's 4.6 billion-year history and, along with the Cambrian, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods, could be a period of significant change for the planet. The new epoch began in the mid-20th century, when globalization, industrialization, and energy consumption began to accelerate, and began voting for a physically verifiable place called the "Golden Spike" that clearly separates the Anthropocene from the earlier Holocene. That location was chosen to be Lake Crawford.

Crawford Lake is small in area and deep (6 acres in size and 75 feet deep), so the water at the top does not mix with the water at the bottom. There is little oxygen at the bottom of the lake and no fish, insects, or organic matter. As a result, only inorganic material falls slowly, forming annual ring-like stripes. Analysis of these annual stripes shows that they contain abrupt changes in plutonium and radiocarbon from nuclear explosions and fly ash from the accelerated combustion of fossil fuels. They interpret the geologic age of the "Anthropocene" to signify recognition of the fact that biogeochemical processes from the past to the present have been dominated by human activity. 

How humans should deal with nature will be debated by further facts in the future. Eventually, I hope that these facts will guide the world in the future economy.

How I, as a human being, should deal with the birds, insects, and weeds on the property is not a big issue (laughs).

-Yuh Okano

See article from the New York Times July 13, 2023 ‘They’re Outsmarting US’ by Emily Anthes.

the New York Times July 11, 2023 The human age has a new symbol. It’s a record of bomb test and fossil fuels. by Raymond Zhong.

The Asahi Shimbun July 13, 2023 Canadian lake sediments reveal start of Earth's Anthropocene age

Note ”Golden spike” originally a railroad nail that is driven in to commemorate the completion of a railroad line at the end of the line. In this case, a golden spike driven into a geologic formation as a boundary separating geologic periods.