Tech Expert Innovates Bird Feeder That Dispenses Seeds in Exchange for Litter. Here’s How Birds Responded to It

One day, the computer scientist Hans Forsberg (@magpie_recycling_project) observed that magpies in his backyard were nipping and poking into the stubborn metal locks of some lanterns. It didn’t take long for him to realize that they were seeking the paraffin candles inside the lanterns. Aware already that magpies are intelligent critters, Forsberg's brain churned up an unusual idea. When magpies can fiddle with the lantern locks and recognize faces in mirrors, why can’t they help him tidy up his surroundings? After a savvy brainstorm, the engineer decided to train these wild magpies to trade trash for food. Today, while he remains busy developing prototypes of his 3D-printed bird feeder, BirdBox, the birds in his garden hustle as garbage-collecting employees who work for food.

“We have developed a bird feeder where birds can exchange litter for food,” Forsberg wrote in a Reddit post, which has since amassed 58,000 upvotes. The clip shared in the post shows a black-and-white-feathered magpie landing on a table carrying trashed items such as a KitKat wrapper, candy wrappers, bottle caps, and decaying leaves. Each time, the bird dropped the item inside a hole built into the table. The bird then pressed a button on a tube, through which pellets of peanuts would fall and get collected in a metal tray. The magpie nibbled away the tasty peanuts, a treat for their hard work.

The innovative bird feeder machine, called “BirdBox,” employs a blend of mechanical design, electronics, software, and a 3D printer to provide food to the magpies in return for an item of trash. As soon as the bird deposits a litter object, the sensors in the dispenser get triggered and the machine becomes ready to shell pellets of bird food like peanuts or animal kibble. These sensors are a part of the “Raspberry Pi” system that includes a camera and a detection system. The Raspberry can sense when something is dropped in the trash hole.

As it seems, it took Forsberg a whole lot of time and effort to build the sophisticated electronics of BirdBox and train the wild birds to follow its instructions. In the initial stages, he just worked on gaining their trust by setting up a timed feeder that dispensed food every few minutes. Then, the birds were taught to press a red button. Ultimately, he trained them to collect trashed bottle caps in exchange for food. Moving on, he planned to train the intelligent creatures to collect other items as well, like cigarette butts littering the streets. Magpies are so clever that they get trained just by watching each other, he said.

“It all ended up quite simple,” he told Hackster. “I arranged a ‘scene' where the bird ‘accidentally' pushed down bottle caps into a larger funnel, and while they were investigating the BirdBox trying to understand why it randomly distributed food. As the bottle caps fell down the funnel, the metal detector tracked them and started the machine…then a few more steps (after that).” The overall design includes a Thingiverse dispenser, a vibrating motor, several extensions, a remote control, and a Python program that controls the logic of the feeder, he wrote on Hackaday.

Additionally, the BirdBox system features a classifier system called “SVM (support vector machine)” that uses color channels to classify between items as litter or non-litter, Forsberg explained in a Reddit comment. He said this feature is “not perfect but good enough.” Calling his invention “amazing,” Redditor u/MaryStoned said, “We need one for squirrels too!”

When asked which bird he’d choose as his demon, author Philip Pullman said “magpie” as they are interesting creatures that collect little shiny things without distinguishing between a diamond ring or a Kit-kat wrapper. Given this metaphor, Forsberg’s machine has stirred people’s curiosity, as to whether these birds could be recruited to collect trash from bins or maybe find lost items. The possibilities are endless. “Should have trained them to bring cash,” u/alhernz95 quipped, noticing a magpie tossing Forsberg’s old credit card in the dispenser.

You can follow Hans Forsberg (@magpie_recycling_project) on Instagram for updates on this innovative bird-feeder project or support the project at Buy Me A Coffee.