. When we opened a box supplied by museum curators, our research team audibly gasped. Inside was a huge Australian magpie nest from 2018. It was more than a metre wide and made up of the strangest assortment of items, including wire coat hangers, headphones, saw blades and plastic 3D glasses â a mix of detritus reflecting our modern lifestyle. This was one of almost 900 Australian nest specimens dating back over 195 years that we inspected for our recent, world-first study. The full magpie nest from 2018 that was collected outside a construction site.(Kathy Townsend, Author provided) We estimate that today, around 30 per cent of Australian bird nests incorporate human-made materials (primarily plastics). We also noted a steady increase in nest parasites over this period.