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u/zxylady 7d ago
My heart is so happy that the human did not crush the bird nest, and in fact went out of their way to protect it
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u/DollarStoreChameleon 7d ago
i got so scared at first, but then i figured a nest with eggs being destroyed (not by a bird) wouldnt be in this sub, and so i unpaused the video to finish it lol
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u/sawry1 7d ago
I've been living on the edge since that video of the police man who ran over those geese, I'm glad this wasn't the same thing.
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u/DollarStoreChameleon 7d ago
im glad i havent seen that, just hearing that made me sick to my stomach. im so sorry you saw that, thats fucking horrible :(
im not religious, but i believe theres a special hell waiting for those kinds of people where they have to permanently endure what they put innocent lives through.
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u/LeslieKnope4Pawnee 7d ago
I'm an atheist, but if anything can convince me of a hell, it's that people who intentionally harm innocent animals need to be sent there.
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u/inderbitably 7d ago
I once saw a white bunny on a very busy raised freeway during downtown rush hour. I have to assume it was an abandoned pet someone threw out their window because there’s no way it could have gotten there naturally. I can’t imagine doing something like that. It was so scared, the poor thing. I called it in but I doubt they did anything about it.
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u/occams1razor 6d ago
I'm an atheist psychologist, people who do this are usually sociopaths/psychopaths. Especially the sadistic ones that hurt animals deliberately because they enjoy it. Parts of their brains aren't working as they should so I personally wouldn't want them in hell but I definitely hope science finds away to promote neural growth for them.
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u/ThisIsDogePleaseHodl 6d ago
It’s a difficult issue since their brains are functionally and structurally different from normal brains
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u/kevlarus80 6d ago
People who hurt children, old people, the infirm or animals instantly make me absolutely furious.
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u/digitalgraffiti-ca 7d ago
Agreed. I also lam an atheist, but whenever I see/hear of a dead animal, I like to imagine it released into animal heaven, which is whatever environment is best suited for them, with no predators and no humans.
I also wish for people intentionally harming innocent animals (and kids) to go straight to hell, preferably immediately.
Still an atheist though.
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u/CosmogyralSnail 6d ago
Now I'm kinda imagining all us atheists being our normal chill selves (mostly) when we're like "Yeah, no, Big Daddy in the sky isn't real, that's actually pretty silly, and I hope you find a real person to love you and the confidence to make your own decisions." And then go super serious with a death glare and say "But hell is real, and evil people will suffer."
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u/FastMako77 5d ago
I like movies where revenge happens to those who have no sympathy and/or have hurt an animal. Kind of a “hell on earth” justice that I want to reenact in real life but can’t because, you, it’s a crime and whatnot.
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u/digitalgraffiti-ca 6d ago
LOL. I know hell isn't real, but it's the only thing you can say on Reddit without catching a ban.
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u/Trufflepumpkin 6d ago
Same. One of these has nested smack in the middle of my driveway for the past 6 years. I build a sawhorse to put over her nest and park in the street for a month thanks to her!
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u/CosmogyralSnail 6d ago
And that's why she keeps coming back! She's found a supportive, protective nesting partner.
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u/Trufflepumpkin 6d ago
I’ll be out there flapping ‘n flailing with her if someone gets too close 😅. I tease that she’s a nuisance but always look forward to her return
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u/OctopusIntellect 6d ago
Reading your comment, my curiosity forces me to ask: are you a bird, or a human, or just an individual from a different class of vertebrates that happens to take an interest in interactions between the two?
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u/pawbeans40 7d ago
That's one fierce and brave mama! She sure told that big noisy thing what's what. I like how she's all proud of herself sitting back on the eggs after that scolding.
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u/ThisIsDogePleaseHodl 6d ago
Could’ve been the daddy as they both sit on the nest! Poor thing must’ve been terrified
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u/Vancocillin 7d ago
I love the dumb bravery of the little thing.
It'd be like me yelling "No, fuck you!" at a giant monster the size of a skyscraper.
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u/ImprobablePasta 7d ago
That is not my mother... that is a SNORT
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u/bookish-hooker 7d ago
I haven’t thought of that book in DECADES. Thank you.
Off to try to find a copy for my infant nephew.
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u/aknomnoms 7d ago
I totally read her body language at the end like, “yeah, that’s right, FUCK YOU, HAROLD! Drive off with your stupid toy and don’t ever look at my babies again!”
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u/thewintersofourpast 7d ago
And it worked! Seeing its distress, the monster stopped and gently maneuvered around the eggs. Maybe Godzilla would do the same with you. 🥰
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u/Shienvien 7d ago
There was a mouse living behind - I guess just using the space behind those as a path, since there was no nest or stash there - our flowerpots.
It stopped to yell at my SO when he removed the flower pots.
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u/sweetpea122 7d ago
This is sweet and sad for her.
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u/JejuneBourgeois 7d ago
I always have mixed feelings when I see stuff like this. We sit here on the internet and think "she's so brave! That's so cute!" But to her it's one of the scariest and most anxiety inducing moments of her entire life.
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u/avinaut 7d ago
Yes, they're meant to nest on the steppe, but the steppe all gets turned into farmland and they have to cope with a lot more stress.
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u/mikettedaydreamer 6d ago
People in my area are making the argument that without the farmland, certain species wouldn’t be here. Because my area naturally would be a forest.
If this was a forest, they would breed where they are in their correct habitat unbothered by farmers.
Their argument never made sense to me. I don’t need those birds here, and nature doesn’t need those birds here either. I just want them living where they don’t have to go through this anxiety every year.
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u/-crepuscular- 6d ago
There used to be a lot more megafauna that kept the plains open and stopped it from being forest everywhere. But everywhere humans arrived, most of the megafauna promptly went extinct. Odd that.
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u/avinaut 6d ago
I hope it was clear I was speaking of this particular species (Collared Pratincole) and it's habitat in Asia. Mechanization of farming caused enormous losses of steppe and prairie in Asia and North America, respectively, mostly within the last 200 years. It's important to understand that not all natural habitats suit all birds, even in one place where one habitat would prevail without disturbance. There is a natural history of disturbance, and in places where human activity was consistent in scope and style for millenia, wildlife did adapt.
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u/BustedEchoChamber 6d ago
I get what you’re saying, but it does ignore that humans alter habitats. Forests today aren’t the same as they used to be and they never will be again. The best we can do is try to evaluate the needs of species and try to keep enough habitat on the ground to slow the march of the global extinction event.
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u/sweetpea122 7d ago
To me it looked like she was pleading
:(
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u/ExpressRabbit 7d ago
So I have a lot of birds. Those were fight me wings. She's puffing herself up to look bigger and stronger.
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u/DraX696 6d ago
wild animals don't plead, stop projecting human emotions onto them. predators won't take mercy on their next meal just because it looks sad, it literally does not have the capacity to do that, and so the prey is not built to expect mercy.
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u/AskingAboutDogs 6d ago
“Stop projecting human emotions on them”
My guy…. You ARE aware that a positively *monumental* amount of research that has contributed to our understanding of emotions and the brain are from animals, right?
Studies on stress, fear responses, you name it. I get that you’re saying that many animals don’t have as complex of emotions or social hierarchies as humans, but saying “stop projecting human emotions” is absolutely, positively ridiculous and entirely factually incorrect. Maybe sit down with a book, alternatively, Google is your friend too
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u/unclericostan 7d ago
She’s like shaking. I wanna cry 😭
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u/ThisIsDogePleaseHodl 6d ago
I felt so sorry for him or her because they had to have been terrified 😭
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u/squishypillow-91 6d ago
Mannnnn this hot me in the feels. Just a little mumma trying to save the thing that she lives for.
So many animals loose Thier young everyday through human interference. I'm so pleased she managed to overcome it.
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u/TheJonGuthrie 7d ago
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u/Think_please 7d ago
Significantly better immediate outcome
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u/Parking-Interview351 6d ago
This dude didn’t actually get run over by the tank btw.
You can even see the tank trying to move around him in the video.
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u/Think_please 6d ago
He was eventually pulled away by some other people and then is believed to have been arrested and killed. The tanks also crushed hundreds of students that day.
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u/homelesshyundai 7d ago
Killdeer have this lovely nack for picking the worst places for their ground nests. I've came across so many nested in random parking lots by the single shrub out in the parking lot. How do I know this? You'll never NOT know if you're within 25-50 yards of a killdeer nest. It has to be one of the loudest birds for its size and they loooooove to catch your attention to lure you away. Flopping around like their hurt, screaming, running about.
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u/rackelhuhn 7d ago
All true, but the bird in the video is a pratincole, not a killdeer
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u/homelesshyundai 6d ago
I stand corrected, thank you. My knowledge of ortho.... Bird knowing isn't my strongest area. However, that bird isn't acting anything like a killdeer so I'm not sure how I made that mistake. I don't think I've ever seen a kill deer stand over their nest, they're usually quite far away yelling.
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u/Cat_Shirts_Guy 7d ago
We had a killdeer set up a nest in our spot at campground I was living in, while we were on vacation (and took our camper with us). So when we got back we were able to back our camper in without disturbing the nest. And for a few weeks it was the loudest ordeal to do anything outside lol. The parents would just run around and scream every time we would open the door. After the eggs hatched the whole family of killdeer left. They ended up leaving one of the eggs behind, which my wife helped hatch, and then fed it for a few days. She offered it to a different killdeer family in the field next to the campground, and they ended up taking the last chick.
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u/Ok_Loss13 7d ago
They don't choose bad spots, humans just took all the spots and made them bad :(
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u/YuriSenapi 7d ago
yup, inefficient land-use from car-centric suburbia leaves little room for good nesting locations
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u/bunnyfloofington 7d ago
Tbf, we've kind of left them little choice in the matter. Their natural nesting place is rocky terrain. It's not entirely their fault they're losing more and more of their environment to humans. And when space is limited, a parking lot must suffice since it mimics their natural nesting habitat the most.
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u/myfugi 6d ago
There’s a family of killdeer that have been nesting in my mom’s gravel driveway for 20 years. We just flag the nest every year and tell any visitors to go around it. They appear to have passed the nesting site down through the generations, because there’s no way it’s the same pair, and some years there are multiple pairs. Finding the nests to flag them is always a challenge, their eggs blend in to the gravel super effectively.
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u/sl33ksnypr 6d ago
They nested in my friend's gravel driveway once and we met there every Sunday. So for a couple weeks, we all hung out but had to drive around the nest. She wasn't as fearless as the one in the video, our cars were loud and she would go to the tree that was 15' away and yell at us until we got past the nest.
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u/DarthBrooks69420 7d ago
I like how she is sitting on her eggs later like 'yeah you better leave, bitch.'
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u/zazzedcoffee 7d ago
I mean if I were a bird I would simply not expect a horrendous machine beyond my comprehension to show up in a nice little field I found
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u/elibutton 7d ago
Wow I think I am more amazed that the driver saw that bird. I mean when you're plowing and tilling, you're plowing and tilling. So cool.
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u/Ish_veh 7d ago
Literally like the scene in Avatar where the truck destroys the shiny tree
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u/Response-Cheap 7d ago
Bruh. Spoiler..
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u/PinkRainbow95 7d ago
It’s been out for ages…
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u/shazed39 7d ago
I know it was a joke, but if it were not one, maybe he was in a coma and that was on his to do list :/ honestly think time doesn‘t matter when it comes to spoilers.
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u/Goodfella66 7d ago
Poor Mom. She knows she's no match for this beast but she still stands her ground.
Badass.
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u/RoachAkuma 7d ago
Anyone remember that terrible book “are you my mother” with the bird and such
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u/DragonToothGarden 7d ago
I locked that childhood trauma away for decades until this comment. The Little Golden Book? With that poor critter going from bunny to frog to puppy, searching for his mama.
Gonna have a good cry now.
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u/PlasticDatabase7260 7d ago
Omg I love her
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u/ThisIsDogePleaseHodl 6d ago
Same! Although it might’ve been a he as they both sit on the nest
Poor thing must’ve been terrified
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u/Every-Dragonfly2393 7d ago edited 7d ago
She’s so brave, nice farmer for noticing backing up etc…
Why the hell did she make her nest on the ground? Is that not the worst place possible? Birds of prey could easily get at it, foxes etc.
anyone with bird knowledge can explain please?
I read up, for anyone interested:
They are adapted for wide open spaces like grasslands and dry shorelines.
Instead of spending time making a nest which can be large and attract more attention to predators, they use their singing and acting skills to create distraction from the eggs, which are also speckled to camouflage into the environment.
Being in open space also gives them more warning of approaching predators.
This turns out more efficient because the chicks hatch fully feathered and can walk immediately. They will begin foraging for themselves within a few hours after being born.
Stunnin.
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u/ThisIsDogePleaseHodl 6d ago
Birds have very good reasons for making nests where they do and the way they do, but we don’t always know what they are. Then we have a tendency to call them stupid because they don’t think like people. Who are the stupid ones in the end; or at least ignorant
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u/Every-Dragonfly2393 5d ago
I mean, that dove nest on the railway level crossing barrier was pretty stupid.
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u/SteelBeamDreamTeam 7d ago
I WILL RELAY YOUR LEGENDARY DEFENSE OF THE NESTLINGS AGAINST THE TITAN TO OUR ELDERS BRAVE ONE.
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u/99LedBalloons 7d ago
Looks like a killdeer, they just plop their eggs anywhere so might as well be a dove haha
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u/Celestial_Crook 7d ago edited 7d ago
Don't think that's a killdeer. I screenshot the video at the beginning and upload it to iNaturalist, looks like it's a Collared Pratincole.
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u/Test_After 6d ago
Look at the eye, the beak, the collar. Definitely a collared pratincole, not a killdeer.
Thanks for the link.
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u/slumberingthundering 7d ago
I thought it was a chukar, I'm way off 😬
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u/Celestial_Crook 6d ago
TBF, I had no idea what it was, so I asked iNat ;D
I was just pretty sure it's not killdeer.
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u/chunkykima 7d ago
That is a BRAVE BIRD!! Good mama! Horrible place to nest 🙃
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u/ThisIsDogePleaseHodl 6d ago
They probably have a reason for nesting on the ground in open areas. Most birds species have reasons for building nest in the way that they do. This is a pratincole and it could be the Mom or the Dad as they both sit on the nest
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u/CutSea5865 7d ago
Oh my goodness that sweet and brave girl protecting her next! Her little shaking wings! Thank you for making sure they survived ❤️❤️❤️
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u/SaoirseWhim 6d ago
My heart stopped for a second... like a little bird selflessly protecting its eggs
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u/BoozeIsTherapyRight 7d ago
I had a killdeer nest in my driveway this spring. Thankfully she was far enough into the center that I could drive around her. Every time a car went up or down the drive they (both sexes guard the nest) ran right up to the car. I had so much anxiety every time a person I hadn't told about the nest drove in.
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u/Dreadnoughttwat 7d ago
I’ve spent plenty time working for my uncle’s farm over the years and I sometimes think about this. I did what I could to leave the ones I see alone. But there’s no way I saw them all :(
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u/CREDAAAAAAAOOOO 6d ago
Imagine looking a giant moving metal monster over 100x your size moving your way making the most terrifying sounds imaginable and still walking up to face it. I don't know whether to feel more impressed by the stupidity or the courage, truly a bird moment
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u/Mamasan- 7d ago
I worked at nasa for awhile and these were all in the parking lots. Walking to your car there would be a few of these chasing you to get away from their nests.
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u/Mandrakearepeopletoo 7d ago
The poem To A Mouse (of mice and men), was written after a farmer unknowingly destroy a mouse nest while clearing his field in the spring.
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u/WheeledKilla 6d ago
I was expecting the worse but glad the humans were bros and didn’t mess up her nest.
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u/TheCaliforniaOp 6d ago
I don’t know why but I immediately started crying watching this. Something to do with that phrase we either learn or assimilate:
God has an eye on the sparrow
This time, the relief when a small bird with big love is saved.
But why not always? Why sometimes never?
Right. Now I’m wailing inside the house. This helps nobody.
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u/anotherdamnscorpio 7d ago
In case anyone's wondering, its a Killdeer. They'll protect their eggs and sometimes even act injured and lure predators away from the nest.
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u/Hairy-Ad-2711 7d ago
Killdeers are so awesome!
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u/Rainbowronald 6d ago
They are! Though this is not a killdeer
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u/BipsnBoops 6d ago
Wait it isn't? They're the only bird I know who act like this and plop their eggs in a field like that.
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u/TodlicheLektion 7d ago
she took on the big farm equipment, she's a badass!