What do bacon, t**s and a computer keyboard have in common?

[accadacca]

Adult great tit, Parus major.

Image: Luc Viatour/Wikipedia Commons, share and share-alike [velociraptorise]
What do bacon, great tits and a computer keyboard have in common? Twitter, of course!

guardian.co.uk - Once upon a time, there was a man named Voldemars Dudums. He liked birds.

Mr Dudums lived in the coastal village of Sarnate in Latvia where the winter temperatures regularly hover around minus 20 degrees Celsius. To help his tiny feathered friends survive the harsh winters, Mr Dudums slathered unsalted pork fat on the tree trunks for them to eat. This seemed to make them happy.

Mr Dudums wondered what "his" birds would say if they could only communicate with each other? A writer and art director for the only weekly magazine in Latvia, ir, Mr Dudums decided to find out. He set a computer keyboard outdoors and attached pieces of unsalted pork fat onto each of the keys. He added screws to each key so his tiny birds could provide enough pressure to depress them whilst they pecked at the fat. Then he placed a webcam near the keyboard to livestream the birds' activity.

The hungry birds, attracted to the lard (which provides them with plenty of energy to survive the intense cold), land on the keyboard to peck at the keys. The keyboard is connected to a computer that sends the birds' lard-pecking activity to their very own twitter account, @hungry_birds. This twitter account live-tweets the birds' messages to the world.

The industrious birds, known in English as great tits, Parus major, are active from 0500 until 1600 GMT and they generate roughly 150 tweets per day. But what are they tweeting?

"eeeaseaseasessaeaeesessaaseseassseaeasseeeeeeeeee eeeeseesesssessssssssssss," tweeted one bird.

"12221212-121212111112121212121122q12222222q222222212o222211 2q1o212q12q12q12q1q1q1," tweeted another bird.

Unfortunately, a quick pass through Google Translate for Animals doesn't break the birds' cryptic code. Some authorities claim that the birds are tweeting sheer nonsense. Other authorities disagree.

"[O]ne may say it is quite silly," said Mr Dudum. "But if you look at what people sometimes say on Twitter, then the tomtits' messages are still OK."

Currently, the birds are not tweeting because they are enjoying the annual spring bloom of insects, new buds and other delicious items to eat as they prepare to bring the next generation of tweeters into the world. However, it is expected that they will resume their activity after the temperatures plummet and the snow flies once more in November.



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Article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/pu.../2011/apr/27/1