Birds in Ukraine are making ‘apocalyptic’ nests out of fibre optic cables

Birds in war-ravaged Ukraine are building nests using the fibre optic cables that lace the country.

These ultra-thin wires have turned most of Ukraine’s 746-mile front line into a glistening spider web, draping over buildings and tangling in trees.

But they’re not for decoration – both Ukraine and Russia have lined the region with the cables to prevent the other from jamming attack drones.

Birds are making the most of these up to 20km long wires by building nests from them, rather than using twigs, moss or grass.

Yana Hrynko, a senior researcher at Kyiv’s War Museum, said at least two of these nests have been discovered so far.

Hrynko said experts don’t know which birds made the nests or when and have sent them for testing.

‘Objects ⁠such as bird nests with fragments ‌of optic fibre demonstrate the change in the nature of war,’ she added.

Several nests have been discovered in frontline regions of Donetsk, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia in recent weeks, Ukrainian personnel told Reuters.

A support battalion of the 12th Azov Brigade in the Torets direction shared a photo of the artificial bird’s nest on Telegram last month.

‘This is just one of dozens of manifestations of how nature survives in the flames of war. Between hundreds of drones, assaults, shelling, and kilometres of scorched earth,’ the brigade said.

One of the nests was found after a Russian glide bomb knocked down a tree in Donbas.

Olena Tregub, secretary general of the Ukrainian civil society group, NAKO, called the pile of cables and grass an ‘apocalyptic bird nest’.

UAnimals, a national animal welfare group, shared a video on Instagram that it said was posted by a Ukrainian soldier on his private social media.

The group said that fibreglass does not decompose, which is why they continue to strangle the Ukrainian landscape long after drones have left.

‘But we must remember that the Russians are forcing us to wage a defensive war, and the responsibility for the wounded nature lies with our enemies,’ UAnimals added.

Despite people comparing messy hair to a ‘bird’s nest’, these mounds of natural material are carefully crafted and intricate.

Most stay in their nests for a month or two to raise their young, so they are choosy about what they pluck and every species uses different materials.

Some use snakeskin to put off predators, while others stuff feathers inside dome-shaped nests to make a fake entrance to fool their hungry enemies.

Yet to the alarm of bird experts, called ornithologists, birds are increasingly using rubbish like sweet wrappers, cigarettes and wires to make nests.

Researchers say this widespread behaviour is a sign that birds, which evolved from tiny dinosaurs 150 million years ago, are quick to adapt in a world shaped by humans.

After all, some believe that they’re plucking cigarette butts as the leftover nicotine may reek to predators. Or even use anti-bird spikes as material.

An analysis of nests built over the last 30 years found that the animals even built them out of face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. They’re soft, almost like a mattress, to the birds, the researchers said.

But this rubbish may be dirty and nestlings may gobble it up, resulting in sickness or even death.

Auke-Florian Hiemstra, a biologist based in the Dutch city of Leiden, said that Ukraine’s cable-filled nest-building has its pros and cons.

She said that as much as the birds may become entangled in the spools of cable, they might be using it to strengthen their nests.

‘We’re going to look for DNA traces still in a nest to determine ‌who actually made the nest,” she said, with one of the artificial nests sent to her team.

‘I ⁠have never seen nests like this before – and I have seen many, many bird nests.’

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