Life lesson comes from Antwerp's tough nest-building birds

The nest built by the tough birds of Antwerp (Photo by Alexander Schippers).

Everyone knows birds are creative when building nests. They'll use almost anything – paper, twigs, dog hair, human hair, Bigfoot hair, leaves, garbage, a copy of TV Guide from Dec. 17, 1977, with the cast of "One Day at a Time" on the cover – to get the structure they want. And birds will be persistent once they find a good place.

At our house, Mrs. Brad resorted to stuffing balls of aluminum foil in the eaves where our neighborhood birds consistently kept trying to build a nest. A few times, I found the foil balls on the ground and wondered (assumed?) that the birds had hired a subcontractor to pull them out so they could build there.

Birds are tough: Anyone who has had a seagull swipe their food or come face-to-face with a turkey or tried to fool a roadrunner with an explosive device purchased from the Acme Co. knows this.

But birds in Antwerp recently took it to another level. They didn't just pull out foil balls. They did the equivalent of what your older sibling did (grabbing your arm and making you hit yourself, then asking you why you were hitting yourself. Although that may just be a flashback that would be better told in a counseling session.)

Anyway, those Antwerp birds. Those tough, rough, fearless Antwerp birds, specifically Eurasian magpies. They're the toughest birds in the world now. They are the Mike Tyson of birds.

Because they built the toughest nest in the history of nests.

Researchers from two natural history museums in Belgium – which all museum experts know are the Naturalis Biodiversity Center and the Natural History Museum Rotterdam – discovered the remarkable nests, according to a press release issued by Naturalis.

First some background: Think about anti-nesting spikes that people and municipalities use to keep birds from building nests. I'm talking about the spikes that make it impossible for birds to get comfortable and build a home. That's the only purpose of the nests. They're like aluminum foil balls, but meaner and more durable.

Now the twist: A couple of Antwerp magpies took those spikes – about 1,500 of them – and built a nest with them.

Yes!

They took the thing designed to prevent them from building a nest and used it to build the baddest, coolest, toughest nest in Antwerp. These birds have a metal nests!

The nest isn't solely made out of the spikes: The birds also used regular nest stuff (twigs, Bigfoot hair, leaves, that TV guide from 1977, marble kitchen counters), too. But experts estimate that the birds pulled about 150 feet of the pins to get enough for their punk nest. Even better, the magpies – who always build a "roof" on their nests to keep predators away – used spikes for that reason: To keep other birds away. Remarkable.

Apparently, this is extreme, but not unprecedented.

An article in the scientific journal Deinsea describes other magpie nests made with anti-bird spikes, as well as barbed wire and knitting needles.

Previous articles reported on the use of face masks and plastic plants in bird nests. Also used: condoms, fireworks, cocaine wraps, sunglasses and windshield wipers.

Cool and tough. The sunglasses nests would be pretty tough looking.

But nobody beats those Antwerp birds, making nests out of anti-nesting spikes.

It's time to update the old lemons-lemonade saying to this: When life gives you anti-nesting spikes, make a nest out of them.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.