Hans Forsberg's yard is also home to a flock of wild magpies and for a long time, they were just a nuisance that kept trying to break into his outdoor lanterns.
But where many people might attempt to get rid of the nuisance, Hans wondered if he could both save his lanterns and put the birds' natural collection instincts to use.
He used a Raspberry Pi as the base for the project, which is an inexpensive computer prized by hackers.
There's a whole lot more to the technical side than I can get into here, but if you're into learning the very nerdy bits, you can check out his explanation here.
Of course, a whole lot of programming, engineering, and training of the birds is required to make it all work.
Obviously, there are only so many bottle caps strewn around the neighborhood, but Hans plans to expand the items that can be used to pay.
He's toying with other widely available bit of trash, like cigarette butts, to teach the magpies to collect. Such items are harder to verify automatically, unlike the bottle caps, which can trigger the metal detector.
It's a pretty awesome, nerdy project and once again proves how smart birds actually can be.
