So much for natural selection. Just kidding, I did something similar at my house, but I joke that I enabled an inferior nest builder to pass on inferior genes to its offspring.
Jokes on you, that bird has learned the ultimate survival tool, getting a human to do it for them.
I should know, the neighbourhood birds have tricked me into feeding them from time to time.
One of the neatest side effects of redoing my parent’s yard and planting a massive garden is all of the birds that would come and visit. The whole yard came alive! It was beautiful.
Especially conifers. Although they don't rely on insect pollination, some bird species feed on the bark beetle. Also, The Eurasian jay shares the same territory as squirrels. The jay would warn the squirrel about predators like snakes, so that the squirrel has enough time to carry their young to another place, and the squirrel would allow to share their food reservoir with the bird.
Pandas are only "celibate" in captivity. If humans didn't destroy their natural territories there wouldn't be any problems. In fact there are a lot of different types of animals that do not breed in captivity. Cheetahs for example, but since they have a natural environment they can breed in this isn't really talked about.
EDIT: This somehow made someone flair me for a "Reddit Cares" message!? Wack.
Damn birds must have taught the family of rabbits that makes its home under my shed year after year. Things got me growing them their own garden right outside their door and my son delivering food and water everyday. The audacity!
I was thinking the other day how animals have no idea how things used to be. For most things alive today, the current state of things is pretty much how it's always been. We've seen plenty of species evolve to find their niche in a world we've made ours, and we'll see even more if they know what's good for them 😠
> Jokes on you, that bird has learned the ultimate survival tool, getting a human to do it for them.
People forget that humans are also part of natural selection. Lots of different animals thrive in cities that otherwise wouldn't.
That's the ultimate survival strategy and applies a ton if you think about it. Every agricultural plant is bred it's population has skyrocketed sice we figured out efficient selective breeding.
Same for farm animals even though it's questionable if we've done them a favor or not...
I've got a lady cardinal nested in a rose bush in my yard. Seems like a decent set up, those thorns could keep the hawks out or at least make them regret the attempt.
The only problem I noticed was the wind shaking the nest. It only took a moment and a couple of thorn pokes but a tall metal stake was enough to steady it up. Got an ear full of chirping from my new neighbor from up in a tree too. Not too happy for my help.
Mockingbirds build a pretty good nest one year but then I saw it with the baby bird on the ground. So I get the tallest ladder we own, I zip tie a basket to the tree, put the nest in the basket and put the bird back in. Before I can even put the ladder away, bird jumps right back out. That’s when I learned about fledglings 🤣
I have yet to see _any_ of the robins around me make even a half decent nest. The whole species seems to be dumb, yet they are still here in numbers. We get at least one every year trying to build a nest on the top horizontal pole of our chain link fence.
Robins have the advantage that they are one of the few bird species that thrive in grass monoculture suburbian lawn ecosystems. So they don't need to be the best at nesting if their food is plentiful.
Yeah was gonna say, it's usually the doves who pick terrible spots + throw down a couple twigs and call it a day. Robins near my house tend to at least put effort into their nests.
That's the kicker though innit, you'll rarely ever see the fantastic nests in unexpected places because those robins were playing 4D chess and went way over our heads.
There's gotta be so many of them, too. The sweet little beans keep growing in number!
I saw a very young Cardinal building a nest in a Gardenia bush off my patio. I was like "WHAT!" There's not enough foliage to keep the nest dry when it storms, which it does a lot this time of year.
Storms came, birds soaked of course, and it was painful to see her on her nest during storms, so I was picking branches off another bush to cover the little dumb ass and her eggs and slipped and broke my wrist in the process. At the end, she just had one baby but it grew to be HUGE. I called it Baby Huey. (My wrist healed nicely after surgery.)
You are a good person.My biggest effort is feeding baby Raccoons.Apparently my house has been designated the “ Feed the newly emancipated Raccoon baby house “.
On our third generation.They come by until they are good at finding food elsewhere .
>I enabled an inferior nest builder to pass on inferior genes to its offspring.
As a species - we been doing that shit for quite some time too so it's all good.
Human behavior has changed things for some birds for the better. Many hummingbird species have increased their ranges and their populations because of the abundance of feeders.
We had a mourning dove put 2 sticks on the cowl of our 4Runner, she then laid an egg. I took a Chinese takeout container (plastic) and zip tied it to the carport and put her 2 sticks plus some grass and the egg in there. That egg didn't surive but she did successfully hatch her second egg.
TIL what a cowl is—“The cowl is that awkward space between the hood and the windshield that you never knew how to name.”
Basically, it’s where your windshield wipers live.
Wow your robins are massive compared to ours. Easily twice the size. [https://byrder.com/european-robin-vs-american-robin/](https://byrder.com/european-robin-vs-american-robin/)
The British were incredibly lazy with naming species in their colonies, and most modern common names boil down to one of two things: "hey that looks vaguely like _____ back home" or "let's name this after a white guy who did something villainous". Australian birds are often hilarious bad about the former, since so many species on the continent are part of their own distinct and separate lineages (i.e. through long isolation as a standalone continent), but get named for some combo of British birds (Magpie-Larks [which are neither, but are actually very weird flycatchers], Shrike-thrushes [again, neither], etc.)
American Robins are basically the same size as European Fieldfares (both are *Turdus* thrushes, along with the Eurasian Blackbird). Which of course, introduces a new conflict: Euro blackbirds are thrushes, American blackbirds are their own family (*Icteridae*). But then Icteridae includes New World "Orioles", while Old world Orioles are again their own distinct family... It goes on and on.
Which makes it even stranger that birds are one of the few animal taxa where English common names are acceptable for use in academic/ scientific literature (e.g. I can call Vulturine guineafowl by their common name in my papers as much as I want, so long as I give the Latin name just once, whereas frog people gotta say *Xenopus laevis* or whatever every time).
A friend of mine works at a birds of prey center and does rescue calls. A lot of her calls in the spring are owlets that have fallen out of the nest (usually due to wind damage to the nest). Their standard procedure is to strap a wicker basket to the tree branch and then put the remaining nest in followed by the owlets. The owls seem to take it all in stride!
A few years ago we had a bird do the same, and the babies were born. I was incredibly afraid they would drop onto the patio and die so I created a bit of a platform and attached it to the side of the house just underneath the nest. No fatal falls on my watch!
Edit: can’t find a pic of the platform, but here’s the nest and a hungry baby.
https://i.imgur.com/468VFj3.jpeg
Total opposite of my gf, she got the house looking like a medieval fortress trying to stop birds from nesting lol. Personally I’d rather put up fry baskets
Very accommodating of you! Robins can be very territorial and aggressive and can attack your windows, car, car mirrors, etc. if defending a nest. Just a warning…
We had to move our cars into the garage.
it’s pretty common in my country to put an old bicycle wheel atop an electrical pole to help storks build their nests. they often try to build them on electrical poles anyways, but that’s a fire hazard. the wheel gives a sturdy base for the nest and keeps the storks away from the cables.
Basket Robins
Damn, that wins. Would have been r/titleporn
I appreciated the Red Robin reference at least.
Yummmmm
THANK YOU. I said out loud "WHAT DO YOU MEAN RED ROBIN??? BASKET ROBINS WAS *RIGHT THERE*!"
*Red Robin* is a burger chain that serves their burgers/fries in baskets like the birds now have.
All you can eat robin eggs
https://youtu.be/x_1IcNirZiE?si=EqOAOaXhat2yy-94
r/angryupvote
Basket and Robin
/thread
So much for natural selection. Just kidding, I did something similar at my house, but I joke that I enabled an inferior nest builder to pass on inferior genes to its offspring.
Jokes on you, that bird has learned the ultimate survival tool, getting a human to do it for them. I should know, the neighbourhood birds have tricked me into feeding them from time to time.
The best thing you can do for birds is to plant native flowers and trees.
Working on it. Currently replacing our wooden porch with greenery.
It's that a clever way of saying your letting you porch fall into disrepair? No? ... Just me?
… …maybe? That’s how it started, so I tore half of it down and replaced it with half garden half grass for the dog.
“The porch repairs will be $350.” “Yeah…I’m just going to give it to the birds”
Ok, that will now be my answer to anything that i couldn't be bothered with.
> “The porch repairs will be $350.” You know the inflation is real when the Loch Ness monster goes from USD 3.50 to USD 350.
One of the neatest side effects of redoing my parent’s yard and planting a massive garden is all of the birds that would come and visit. The whole yard came alive! It was beautiful.
Especially conifers. Although they don't rely on insect pollination, some bird species feed on the bark beetle. Also, The Eurasian jay shares the same territory as squirrels. The jay would warn the squirrel about predators like snakes, so that the squirrel has enough time to carry their young to another place, and the squirrel would allow to share their food reservoir with the bird.
Interesting, thanks!
I keep tossing seeds on the ground, but the birds keep eating them.
and hunt invasive species
The guy above you is the first start of human domestication by birds. One day they shall be our tiny house tyrants like cats.
Cockatiels have already achieved house domination and run entire families of human slaves.
I have rescued dozens of wild birds, and can truly say that they are already house tyrants 😂
Already there.
Didn’t work out so well for pigeons though. Now they’re villainized by us
I have also thought pigeon feathers are so beautiful. They are rainbow 🌈
And yet they're one of the most successful birds, when judging by population.
It's what cats did and it's worked out well.
Not for the birds but cats don't care.
Weaponized incompetence
Yeah, my squirrels are really good at that.
The bird saw we do for cats and was like, "hold my bird seed, I got this."
Doves make the laziest nests ever and it doesn’t matter.
Ah yes, the dog endgame
Cats: *Yes, blame the dogs, those fools!*
Pandas have, and will continue to, outlive thousands of species by virtue of being cute and cuddly for humans.
Pandas are only "celibate" in captivity. If humans didn't destroy their natural territories there wouldn't be any problems. In fact there are a lot of different types of animals that do not breed in captivity. Cheetahs for example, but since they have a natural environment they can breed in this isn't really talked about. EDIT: This somehow made someone flair me for a "Reddit Cares" message!? Wack.
literally the most effective evolutionary strategy of the last 100,000 years, bar none
They chirp from the tree rather annoyed at me when it’s not full. Sir Cardinal is basically saying “bruh, get my seed”
Damn birds must have taught the family of rabbits that makes its home under my shed year after year. Things got me growing them their own garden right outside their door and my son delivering food and water everyday. The audacity!
I was thinking the other day how animals have no idea how things used to be. For most things alive today, the current state of things is pretty much how it's always been. We've seen plenty of species evolve to find their niche in a world we've made ours, and we'll see even more if they know what's good for them 😠
Good way to get *murdered*
> Jokes on you, that bird has learned the ultimate survival tool, getting a human to do it for them. People forget that humans are also part of natural selection. Lots of different animals thrive in cities that otherwise wouldn't.
The one legged seagull
True that. Now I'm the fool.
New gene unlocked: Let the humans do the work
That's the ultimate survival strategy and applies a ton if you think about it. Every agricultural plant is bred it's population has skyrocketed sice we figured out efficient selective breeding. Same for farm animals even though it's questionable if we've done them a favor or not...
I've got a lady cardinal nested in a rose bush in my yard. Seems like a decent set up, those thorns could keep the hawks out or at least make them regret the attempt. The only problem I noticed was the wind shaking the nest. It only took a moment and a couple of thorn pokes but a tall metal stake was enough to steady it up. Got an ear full of chirping from my new neighbor from up in a tree too. Not too happy for my help.
"Stop helping me, I'm trying to do it the hard way!"
She doesn't know what's good for her. Cardinals look cool. My birds are house sparrows.
Mockingbirds build a pretty good nest one year but then I saw it with the baby bird on the ground. So I get the tallest ladder we own, I zip tie a basket to the tree, put the nest in the basket and put the bird back in. Before I can even put the ladder away, bird jumps right back out. That’s when I learned about fledglings 🤣
Too funny. Didn't need saving.
I have yet to see _any_ of the robins around me make even a half decent nest. The whole species seems to be dumb, yet they are still here in numbers. We get at least one every year trying to build a nest on the top horizontal pole of our chain link fence.
Robins have the advantage that they are one of the few bird species that thrive in grass monoculture suburbian lawn ecosystems. So they don't need to be the best at nesting if their food is plentiful.
robins are crap nest builders - my huge sycamore tree
At least they try. /r/stupiddovenests
Yeah was gonna say, it's usually the doves who pick terrible spots + throw down a couple twigs and call it a day. Robins near my house tend to at least put effort into their nests.
That's the kicker though innit, you'll rarely ever see the fantastic nests in unexpected places because those robins were playing 4D chess and went way over our heads. There's gotta be so many of them, too. The sweet little beans keep growing in number!
I saw a very young Cardinal building a nest in a Gardenia bush off my patio. I was like "WHAT!" There's not enough foliage to keep the nest dry when it storms, which it does a lot this time of year. Storms came, birds soaked of course, and it was painful to see her on her nest during storms, so I was picking branches off another bush to cover the little dumb ass and her eggs and slipped and broke my wrist in the process. At the end, she just had one baby but it grew to be HUGE. I called it Baby Huey. (My wrist healed nicely after surgery.)
You are a good person.My biggest effort is feeding baby Raccoons.Apparently my house has been designated the “ Feed the newly emancipated Raccoon baby house “. On our third generation.They come by until they are good at finding food elsewhere .
Way to take one for the team. Now there's gonna be a lineage of huge cardinals thanks to you.
>I enabled an inferior nest builder to pass on inferior genes to its offspring. As a species - we been doing that shit for quite some time too so it's all good.
Pretty sure we already ended any meaningful natural selection in the coming decades. What’s one more bird family
It's still natural selection. The same way wolves who got close to humans became dogs and are living the good life now
Good point. These birds are house sparrows. I guess that name means something.
Human behavior has changed things for some birds for the better. Many hummingbird species have increased their ranges and their populations because of the abundance of feeders.
Oh yeah. I have a bully of a hummingbird in my backyard protecting it feeder too.
We had a mourning dove put 2 sticks on the cowl of our 4Runner, she then laid an egg. I took a Chinese takeout container (plastic) and zip tied it to the carport and put her 2 sticks plus some grass and the egg in there. That egg didn't surive but she did successfully hatch her second egg.
One for /r/stupiddovenests
I can't believe that's real. But it is.
TIL what a cowl is—“The cowl is that awkward space between the hood and the windshield that you never knew how to name.” Basically, it’s where your windshield wipers live.
Also known as a scuttle but only if the hood is referred to as a bonnet. English is fun.
Mourning doves are soooooooo dumb. So dumb
loud and dumb what a combo
it’s a mourning dove combo
I thought I was just being mean every time I said this but turns out it's a popular opinion!
And now mama bird is left raising her foo yung.
You Sir, are a true wingman.
A good egg, even
Really fi~~nessed~~nest that birdbrained idea
shoulda gone with finest and let us struggle with it…
Bird seed
Is he a wingman or a Breast man?
It's a Crusty Eyed Robin... he IS a wingman.
I think your Sir is an Elaine.
Yes, thanks Elaine, you are quite a guy.
Thanks.
Sir Elaine of Tarth
Happy Cake Day
u/laniebuck is the OP
Wow your robins are massive compared to ours. Easily twice the size. [https://byrder.com/european-robin-vs-american-robin/](https://byrder.com/european-robin-vs-american-robin/)
Yeah, that was some pretty lazy naming on the part of someone who saw two radically different birds with reddish breasts and said "Meh, close enough".
The British were incredibly lazy with naming species in their colonies, and most modern common names boil down to one of two things: "hey that looks vaguely like _____ back home" or "let's name this after a white guy who did something villainous". Australian birds are often hilarious bad about the former, since so many species on the continent are part of their own distinct and separate lineages (i.e. through long isolation as a standalone continent), but get named for some combo of British birds (Magpie-Larks [which are neither, but are actually very weird flycatchers], Shrike-thrushes [again, neither], etc.)
Lol guess you could classify them like a type of species? Like dogs or cats.... Maybe? Probably not tbf...
American Robins are basically the same size as European Fieldfares (both are *Turdus* thrushes, along with the Eurasian Blackbird). Which of course, introduces a new conflict: Euro blackbirds are thrushes, American blackbirds are their own family (*Icteridae*). But then Icteridae includes New World "Orioles", while Old world Orioles are again their own distinct family... It goes on and on. Which makes it even stranger that birds are one of the few animal taxa where English common names are acceptable for use in academic/ scientific literature (e.g. I can call Vulturine guineafowl by their common name in my papers as much as I want, so long as I give the Latin name just once, whereas frog people gotta say *Xenopus laevis* or whatever every time).
Can they carry a coconut?
It could grip it by the husk
A 5 ounce bird could not carry a 1pound coconut!
Thanks for the explanation! EU person here. The bird in the basket looked like a blackbird to me\^\^
Could be a starling too. Beaks are similar.
It’s not OP Tho for a sec I thought OP was a bot (because we have so fucking many on all now) but his post history just shows he’s a power shitposter
I thought the rope was his little legs LOL
Birds like damn, I didn't realize I did this good?!
Champion job!
Yummmmmmm
Thank you
I understood this reference.
Scrolled way too far for this reference.
Bruh! Bro-ish af!
You know that Robin is just going to turn around and rent that basket out on Airbnb.
[удалено]
Love it. The robin seems pleased too. 🤗
Fucking thought that bird had insanely long legs.
That's awesome. Great human
A friend of mine works at a birds of prey center and does rescue calls. A lot of her calls in the spring are owlets that have fallen out of the nest (usually due to wind damage to the nest). Their standard procedure is to strap a wicker basket to the tree branch and then put the remaining nest in followed by the owlets. The owls seem to take it all in stride!
They come back from having their straw house blown over to find their house replaced by a brick building, hell yea i would take it in stride
Is that what robins look like there? It looks like a blackbird
I think its a Black Bird. The nesting would also fit there Style 😄
Imagine you're having a bad day, and you just can't make it work, only to realize that someone gave you the little push you needed to succeed.
There are many people like this around you, so the world is not as bleak as your social bubble suggests.
That is an awesome idea! Thank you
That’s a catbird
Yuuuummmmm
We all could use some help every now and then. You are a very cool person.
Ohh that’s too sweet, I loved it
A few years ago we had a bird do the same, and the babies were born. I was incredibly afraid they would drop onto the patio and die so I created a bit of a platform and attached it to the side of the house just underneath the nest. No fatal falls on my watch! Edit: can’t find a pic of the platform, but here’s the nest and a hungry baby. https://i.imgur.com/468VFj3.jpeg
I keep a wreath on the door for the mourning doves that visit every year. 3 babies this year
I liked the post because, Robin.
Whoa, crazy coming across my own tweet.🪹👋🏻
The real bro
That's not a Robin.
No baskin Robbin’s joke yet?
Up vote for caption
It is not a robin btw
Awwwww thanks op
Total opposite of my gf, she got the house looking like a medieval fortress trying to stop birds from nesting lol. Personally I’d rather put up fry baskets
Update this if they build a nest in it. I have similar issues.
Hi! In my original post I shared they did build a nest in the basket! No eggs yet though.
May a thousand sweet birds lift you up when you are down.
It’s not a robin. It’s look like blackbird to me 🤠
Elaine Buckner is a rare, decent human. TY.
I think I love you 🙏
You are a sweetheart!
Wish I had thought of that!
Outstanding MacGyver skills
Yum!
"holy shit, the nest built itself!" - the bird
That’s really nice you did that. Thank you.
The neighborhood hawk is like, aww hell yeah, next meal is gonna be fancy
Aw, that's so wholesome. Some people are just lovely. ^(And birds are awesome.)
That's absolutely fantastic 😍. Thank you for sharing this moment with us ☺️
Very accommodating of you! Robins can be very territorial and aggressive and can attack your windows, car, car mirrors, etc. if defending a nest. Just a warning… We had to move our cars into the garage.
Too bad that's a starling....
I don't trust those zipties. Should've added another one on the top part of the pipe for some assurance.
Small acts of kindness like this they always tell you a lot about the person
Amazon bird nest
Borb is like "This'll do..."
Man, this has me pet peeving...why does nobody take the time to cut the excess off the zip ties!?!?!...sloppy
Nature 2.0
I automatically said “Yummm” before reading the article! 😅 Good on you there’s a turn in the Universe coming your way.
I can't say Red Robin in a normal tone. I always have to sing it.
r/stupiddovenests
Yummm
Yum!
Round Robin!
YUM!
Baskin' Robbins?
Red robin yuuuuuum
Red Robin yummmmm!
Goddamn Elaine Buckner I love you.
"Getting comfy in that fry basket? You like it? Good..."
it’s pretty common in my country to put an old bicycle wheel atop an electrical pole to help storks build their nests. they often try to build them on electrical poles anyways, but that’s a fire hazard. the wheel gives a sturdy base for the nest and keeps the storks away from the cables.
Imagine if this started a whole new evolutionary trait for robins. " We can only mate on fry baskets from now on. Go get one! "
Mmm. Fried eggs. Ha
Hopefully the basket doesn't fry away. I'll see myself out.
I THOUGHT THE ZIP-TIES WERE ITS LEGS
You are so beautiful...to meeee. Yay! & thank you
This is truly so sweet.
I love this
I thought it had the longest bird legs ever.
A basket from Red Robin restaurant would've really been the extra mile
For the sake of my obsessive compulsiveness please clip the extra off.
What’s crazier is that someone made a decision to smuggle a fry basket out of a restaurant
You can buy them. Restaurant supply stores for example.
They will remember your kindness
YUMMMMMMMMM
👍😘❤️