A gardener was delighted when a local bird made a meal for itself in their garden, but they were shocked by its choice of vegetables.
In the r/GardeningAustralia subreddit, the OP shared a video of a kookaburra feasting on their jalapeño plant.
(Click here to watch the video if the embed does not appear.)
“Since when are jalapeños on a kookaburra’s preferred dining menu?” they wondered in the caption.
According to The National Audubon Society, birds are actually the primary dispersal method for pepper plants, distributing the seeds through their excrement. Birds generally can’t taste capsaicin, the chemical compound that gives peppers their heat, and their digestive tracts don’t break down the seeds, meaning they can spread them far and wide.
The National Audubon Society did note that birds’ heat tolerance maxes out at 500,000 Scoville Heat Units, the scale for measuring the heat of peppers, which is about as spicy as peppers found in the wild can get. For reference, jalapeños range from 2,500 to 8,000 Scovilles, while selectively bred varieties like the ghost pepper clock in at a blistering 1 million Scovilles.
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Vegetable gardens are a great way to attract wildlife like birds and bees and rely heavily on them for pollination.
Pollinators contributed an estimated $34 billion to the economy in the United States alone, per the National Science Foundation, making them a vital part of agriculture worldwide.
You can draw pollinators to your lawn or garden by focusing on native species and letting your yard become wild again. Natural lawns are also much easier to maintain than traditional monoculture lawns, saving time and money on maintenance, like watering, mowing, and weeding.
In addition to native plants, low-water and low-maintenance lawn coverings like clover and buffalo grass offer more benefits than traditional lawns.
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Redditors in the comments were amused by the bird’s choice of snack.
“He likes it spicy??” one person said.
Another noted, “Jalapeños are quite sweet. I suspect that sweetness is the drawcard.”
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