When the team returned to the sites, they determined which ornaments were picked from the mud pile and moved into a pit, and whether it came from an urban or rural source. After recording the data, all original decorations were returned to their towers.
Green glass and red wire
In a rural setting, a male Great Meadowlark is shown to a female Great Meadowlark. Credit: Caitlin Evans
Further analysis revealed that rural wild birds used green glass and green leaves or seeds for decoration, while urban birds used green glass and red wire. Plastic items were also popular, although “we also found items including a pair of handcuffs, medicine containers in gardens near a hospital and fluorescent mouth guards near an Australian Rules football pitch”. said co-author Caitlin Evans of the University of Exeter.
Urban bow decorations are more than 10 times more human-made than rural bow decorations, which have more natural items such as fruits, seeds, leaves, and sticks. Urban meadows also had about five times as many ornaments as rural ones, averaging 90 compared to 20 for rural birds. An overachieving city man collected 300 items to decorate his bow. Male birds, both urban and rural, showed a strong preference for human items when selecting items from each environment. The red decorations on the city bows were brighter and the green ones were duller than on the village bowls.
