A Swedish father and his son have created a fully functional recycling machine run by the MAGPIES that live in their neighbourhood.

Tomas Morsing, 57, came up with the idea several years ago but it wasn't until he retired that he found the time to develop the idea with the help of his 20-year-old son Olof.

Tomas and Olof, from Gothenburg, Sweden, built the magpie feeder and recycler in February last year and they have been altering and improving their design since.

The basic principle involves magpies picking up litter and placing it in a compartment where it is sorted so that seeds can be released for the hungry birds.

As of January 2022, the father and son had recorded 5,000 magpies approaching the contraption to give their offerings and had collected between 1,500 and 9,000 pieces of litter.

At the end of 2020, Tomas, who works in the pharmaceutical industry, started working part-time which enabled him to focus on new innovative projects.

With the help of his son, who always had an interest in maths, programming, and engineering, the 57-year-old was able to bring his idea to life.

Olof explained: “We wanted to show the potential of intelligent birds which coexist with humans and to demonstrate a way to solve a real problem in modern society.”

Their first prototype was built from recycled material such as scrap wood to make the platform for the magpies to land on and a funnel compartment for the food to be stored in.

Olof added: “We started recording footage to understand the magpies and to be able to train them to use the bird feeder.”

The duo had to put the bird feeder on a platform, then set a timer to regularly release seeds so that the magpies knew they could get food from the platform.

He explained: “When they got comfortable with the machine, we added some litter all over the platform and close to the hole. The magpies were rewarded when they accidentally pushed something down the hole.

“Sooner than later, the very intelligent magpies understood that pushing the litter down the hole meant they would receive food."

Tomas and Olof were concerned that the birds would try to trick the machine with sticks and stones to release food without doing the good deed of recycling, but the two were proven wrong.

Tomas explained: “We didn't need the sorting mechanism at all, it turns out the magpies, once they’d been trained, only collect real litter, we have now over 5,000 interactions between the machine and magpies, and they have never collected and left anything else other than real litter

“The magpies collect about between five and 30 pieces of litter each day and have been doing so for the last 300 days."