Sometimes you have to watch the birds pick up the cigarette butts. It would seem, why do they need it? The thought immediately arises that they are stupid and do not understand what harm this can bring them. But it turns out quite the opposite. Cigarette butts benefit birds.
Even from school, we were told about the dangers of nicotine and promoted the fight against smoking. Imagine the surprise of bird watchers when they found bird nests filled with cigarette butts. Nicotine is a poison not only for humans. It helps to successfully fight … insects.
Birds care about their offspring no less than mammals. They carefully build nests in hard-to-reach places. The hatchlings are very weak. Insects pose a threat to them from which they cannot protect themselves. Adults bring cigarette butts to nests and force insects to leave the territory or die.
An experiment was carried out to exclude an accidental coincidence. In some nests insects were absent, while in others they were specially launched. The birds solved the problem with confidence. In those nests where insects were present, they specially brought cigarette butts.
Of course, we can say that nicotine has a detrimental effect on birds as well. One can only guess if they know about it. The question of how they came up with this idea deserves special attention. It can be assumed that at first one of the birds accidentally brought a butt into the nest. After that, the insects disappeared. But how did this information spread to other individuals?