Birding

Birds and Trash

September 30, 2021 by Kai Pflug 2 Comments

In some places, birds have to live with large amounts of trash in their environment. Fortunately, some have found creative ways to deal with this issue:

Trash indicating food (Yellow-billed Chough, Balangshan, China)

Trash as nesting material (Upland Buzzard, Ruoergai, China). This is actually getting more popular in nesting areas with a high risk of gentrification. In order to deter real estate speculation, residential birds deliberately use ugly materials as part of their nests in order to prevent a local real estate boom.

Trash as a vantage point (Striated Heron, Nanhui, China)

Trash as a bathtub (Siberian Thrush, Nanhui, China). Of course, this requires some luck – the trash has to serve as some kind of vessel and contain some water.

However, in most cases, birds lack the creativity and ingenuity common in humans to utilize trash. The result: Trash without any use whatsoever (Asian Pied Starling, Mumbai)

Trash without any use whatsoever (Greater Painted Snipe, Delhi)

Trash without any use whatsoever (Red-breasted Flycatcher, Nanhui)

Trash without any use whatsoever (Grey Heron, Nanhui, China)

Trash without any use whatsoever (Oriental Pratincole, Tiaozini, China)

Trash without any use whatsoever (Eurasian Curlew, Tiaozini, China)

Trash without any use whatsoever (Japanese Night Heron, Chongming, China)

More trash without any use whatsoever (Ibisbill, Jilakou, Qinghai, China)

More trash without any use whatsoever (Little Ringed Plover, Fengxian, Shanghai, China)

Overall, humanity is not doing a very good job of providing birds with the environment they need, I am afraid. In keeping with this negative spirit, this post ends with lyrics from a song by Craig Finn:

“You live your whole life just to travel to the place you’re gonna die”.

Still not sure whether this is deep or trivial. But the song is definitely worth listening to (or downloading).

 

Written by Kai Pflug
Kai has lived in Shanghai for 21 years. He only started birding after moving to China, so he is far more familiar with Chinese birds than the ones back in his native Germany. As a birder, he considers himself strictly average and tries to make up for it with photography, which he shares on a separate website. Alas, most of the photos are pretty average as well.He hopes that few clients of his consulting firm—focused on China’s chemical industry—ever find this blog, as it might raise questions about his professional priorities. Much of his time is spent either editing posts for 10,000 Birds or cleaning the litter boxes of his numerous indoor cats. He occasionally considers writing a piece comparing the two activities.