The nature of war Ukraine birds weave nests of fiber optic cable

These little bird's nests found near the front line show how the war in Ukraine is shaping its wildlife. Woven from grass and fibre-optic cable, the nests are delicate and were sent to Kiev's war museum by the armed forces. In Ukraine's front line regions, the cables glisten in the sunlight like giant spider's webs. They can stretch for 12 miles, tangled in trees and draped across fields and rooftops, along the 746-mile front line. Little wonder that birds have begun repurposing them, and troops are finding their handiwork. What a thing, this soldier says. That's impressive. Liana Rinko, a senior researcher at the museum, the nests demonstrate the changing nature of the war. She says, I don't recall seeing such nests in 2022, the year Russia launched its full-scale invasion. Ultra-thin fibre-optic cables are used by Ukrainian and Russian troops to guide aerial attack drones and make them impervious to electronic jamming. Ukraine has poured resources into developing aerial drones, trying to counter Russia's advantage in conventional warfare. Drones now dominate the battlefield. We're still looking for the architect of these nests. Alko Florian Heemstra is a biologist based in the Dutch city of Leiden, who specialises in artificial nest materials. He says Ukraine has rich avian biodiversity, and it's still unclear what the cable nests say about it. It's always a bit difficult to answer what the impact on the bird is. So in a way, of course, artificial material can harm the birds. They can entangle in it. They can, in all ways, harm themselves. However, also, birds can also use artificial material to really make a strong nest. And so it can also be beneficial for the birds. But how that balance turns out for these nests, optical fibre nests, I'm not yet sure. And so for that, we also need to study the nest more.