One man’s trash is a common coot’s treasure, at least when it comes to plastic. In Amsterdam, the birds have been constructing nests out of plastic food wrappers, masks and other waste for at least 30 ...

A 1994 FIFA World Cup souvenir. A McDonald’s McChicken container from 1996. Decades-old plastic packaging. Look inside the nests of Eurasian coots, and you’ll find a surprising history of human ...

What if expiration dates could tell us more than when something goes bad? Scientists have found that dates on plastic food ...

Nest researcher Auke-Florian Hiemstra stumbled upon a bird nest that appeared to go back 30 years in time – filled with historical plastics. His discovery of successive layers of plastic in birds’ ...

Researchers reconstructed the history of an unusual 30-year-old bird nest based on the expiration dates printed on plastic waste in the structure. Reading time 3 minutes Plastic may have started a new ...

Covid-19 face masks, a chocolate wrapper from 1994 and a 30-year-old polystyrene burger box – the nests of Amsterdam’s Eurasian coots chart changes to consumer society through plastic waste. Usually, ...

New research reveals the impact of discarded plastic materials on young birds – with chicks dying after becoming entangled in synthetic fibres used to build their nests. Scientists from the University ...

An advertisement for the 1994 World Cup, fast food wrappers, COVID-19 masks—what birds used to build their nests reflects a world with more plastic. A coot bird in London on a nest made of twigs and ...

Dr. Rohwer is the curator of birds and mammals at the Cornell University Museum of Vertebrates. Most birds go to great lengths to hide their nests. So when I find one, invariably so carefully crafted ...

Plastic waste in European coots' nests acts as a stratified record of human impact on nature. Credit: Ellen26 https://www.needpix.com/photo/1849749/ Plastic waste in ...