Crows make use of pretty much anything they find lying around to build their hardy nests. They weave the twigs together with little pieces of metallic wire that strengthen the nest structure. In some nests, the clever crows incorporate knotted lengths of thick plastic instead.

Twigs and other natural materials are hard to come by in [Tokyo], so the birds settle for the next best thing, and that seems to be coat hangers.

A blogger had posted some of these images way back in 2005, after solving the mystery of the missing hangers from her back yard. But it isn’t just the one nest – it seems that Japanese Jungle Crows are compulsive collectors of hangers.

Top photo via Brian Kennedy
Bottom photo via Susan Fleming.

As some of you may know, I am a huge fan of crows, but this bit of passed-on cleverness is beyond what even I would have expected.

I’d love to see some footage of crows snitching coat hangers for this purpose…Mama crow showing her latest couple of clutches, “Okay kids, this is the primo material for building nests…”

Via Oddity Central.