When the whole gang shares 1 brain cell
Magpie Hivemind
honestly I can guess what happened here
by the look of it that fence is very thin at the top, and very slippery
a magpie comes in for a landing, unaware that it won’t be able to grip. because of the way birds are structured, when they slip and fall down, their neck (much skinnier than the feathers make it look) is basically perfectly positioned to get slotted in like that. now the bird is stuck, and has basically no way to extract itself.
because magpies are social and intelligent, the problem compounds itself. it’s a similar principle to “corvid funerals” – on seeing a magpie in distress, more gather to investigate. which attracts more magpies to try to perch on the fence … which means more of them slip.
honestly, i’m amazed and very glad all those birds managed to fly away. i’m shocked none of them died of exhaustion, hanging, exposure, or predation.
tl;dr this fence is a nightmarish bird trap
Now I’m going to look at future fencing for my clients and make sure this is factored in. “Is this fence bird-safe?” Is now on my materials and building list.
Thank you UntitledGooseGay for drawing the rest of our attention to the architectural issue. It also explains why so many birds where backwards.
