By Mary Ward
Transport workers are locked in a battle of wits with a stubborn bird after removing its nests in traffic lights at a busy intersection four times in one month.
The bird, a common myna, has created a Hitchcock-esque horror for those managing traffic flow at the corner of Mount and Walker streets in North Sydney’s business district.
The myna bird returning to its nest in a North Sydney traffic light on Friday.Credit: Sam Mooy
It first built the nest in late September, blocking the light’s red signal. The nest was removed by Transport for NSW and metal grates and spikes were installed on the lights.
Undeterred, a week later the avian developer was back, stringing strands through the grates while wriggling through to continue to built its nest in the red signal and gather leaves and sticks in a pile on top of the yellow signal.
The nests were removed from the traffic light another three times before, last week, the bird built a fifth nest and sat atop the traffic light guarding it for several hours each day.
“He’s stubborn, for sure,” said Joe Adams, who has been watching the saga unfold outside his TSG store on Walker Street.
“And it is just that traffic light. He isn’t interested in any of the others.”
The bird’s first nest, built in late September, and its fifth, which was constructed and dismantled last week.Credit: Reddit/Mary Ward
Transport for NSW workers attended the site on Friday evening to attempt to remove the nest and install chicken wire over the traffic light. However, they decided to stop the operation due to the presence of members of the public who were filming the bird and expressing concern about the removal of the nest.
Reddit users have been sharing images of the bird’s nest builds on its website over the past month.
In a statement issued on Friday afternoon, before the workers attended the site, Transport for NSW said it intended to install chicken wire “to further deter the bird from nesting there again”.
On Saturday, two birds were seen adding to the nest.
Common mynas, also known as Indian mynas, are an introduced species and considered to be a pest. North Sydney Council has previously run workshops teaching the public how to trap the birds and issues traps to affected residents.
Gisela Kaplan, an emeritus professor in animal behaviour at the University of New England, said she had never seen a nest in a traffic light before, but she believed the bird – like many Sydneysiders – was likely experiencing housing stress.
“Nesting spaces for birds have been decimated by us cutting down trees, developing houses, by making properties so small that people can’t even put a shrub in their backyard,” she said.
“The other side of the story is Australia has very intelligent birds, and a firm structure like a traffic light, which also has some warmth to it, seems like a very good place to nest.”
Kaplan said the strips of plants seen on the traffic light were the first stage of nest-building, and it was possible the bird was only interested in that particular traffic light because others at the intersection were outside its territorial feeding grounds.
However, she said there was one particularly puzzling element of the saga: common myna birds, also known as Indian mynas, typically do not build nests, instead making use of nesting holes in trees.
The birds can kill native wildlife, such as rosellas, in the process.
Dr Diane Colombelli-Negrel, a bird researcher at Flinders University, said a bird would return to the same location to build a nest if it has been successful in the past i.e. if its nest has been a home to its fledglings.
“Birds build nests to attract a mate, or build a nest with a mate,” she explained. She had also never seen a bird nest in a traffic light, but there had been instances of birds nesting on rarely used cars and buildings.
“Birds adapted to an urban area can be opportunistic and nest on anything that’s available,” she said.
Both researchers agreed repeatedly removing the nest would likely deter future builds. However, Kaplan said if the bird was a native she would have recommended a nest box was installed at a similar height, so the bird could make a new, safer, home.
“But it is more useful for a myna to be captured,” she said.
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