{"id":11652,"date":"2026-03-18T15:12:28","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T20:12:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=11652"},"modified":"2026-03-18T15:14:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T20:14:34","slug":"why-some-birds-seem-to-be-developing-a-cigarette-habit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2026\/03\/18\/why-some-birds-seem-to-be-developing-a-cigarette-habit\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Some Birds Seem to Be Developing a Cigarette Habit"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/03\/18\/science\/bird-nests-cigarettes.html\">NYT<\/a> Research from Poland adds to evidence from Latin American countries that compounds in used cigarette butts ward off parasites in bird nests. Darwin\u2019s finches in the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s10530-024-03278-6\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"Gal\u00e1pagos, opens in a new window\">Gal\u00e1pagos<\/a>, house finches in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/epdf\/10.1111\/jav.01324\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"Mexico, opens in a new window\">Mexico<\/a>&nbsp;and song thrushes in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.academia.edu\/1934042\/Cigarette_butts_form_a_perceptually_cryptic_component_of_song_thrush_Turdus_philomelos_nests\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"New Zealand, opens in a new window\">New Zealand<\/a>&nbsp;have all developed a curious habit: They put cigarette butts in their nests. Some songbirds in Britain are even nesting in outdoor ashtrays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A new study adds evidence for why urban birds have picked up this preference, at least in one species: The toxins in tobacco may keep parasites at bay in the nests of blue tits, colorful birds that are found across Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cigarette butts contain about 4,000 chemical compounds, including nicotine, arsenic, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and heavy metals. These compounds could ward off pests that harm birds and their offspring. The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0003347226000011\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"study, opens in a new window\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">study<\/a>\u00a0was published this year in the journal Animal Behaviour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/03\/18\/science\/bird-nests-cigarettes.html\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<div style=\"display: none;\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"\/secure-location.php\" title=\"qG jp  C \">qG jp  C <\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NYT Research from Poland adds to evidence from Latin American countries that compounds in used cigarette butts ward off parasites in bird nests. Darwin\u2019s finches in the&nbsp;Gal\u00e1pagos, house finches in&nbsp;Mexico&nbsp;and song thrushes in&nbsp;New Zealand&nbsp;have all developed a curious habit: They put cigarette butts in their nests. Some songbirds in Britain are even nesting in outdoor [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":11655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coping-with-covid"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Screenshot-2026-03-18-at-16.08.12.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11652"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11653,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11652\/revisions\/11653"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}