Some birders aren't gonna like this.

An artist in Norway called HC Gilje, has a 3 year research fellowship at the National Academy of the Arts in Bergen. The big question: How can audiovisual tools be used to transform, create, expand, amplify and interpret physical spaces? Well, here's one way that the artist is trying out--using little electronic mechanisms to create woodpecker drumming sounds in the woods called "wind-up birds." This flock of mechanical woodpeckers, have been put in a forest in Lillehammer, Norway as part of the UT-21 project.

In the blog, the artist wonders, "How will nature treat them, with hostility or acceptance?" and is intrigued that the sounds fool humans. I would imagine that here in the US, they would be treated with hostility as angry birders would claim the art would drive woodpeckers out of their territories or stress them out or just plain confuse them...or be angry into thinking a flock of rare woodpeckers had moved in only to find out they were punked by an art project. Speaking of rare woodpeckers, I wonder if this project couldn't be modified to do that double knock the ivory-billed woodpecker is supposed to make? A bunch could be placed in Arkansas or Florida to try and call out the woodpecker that cannot be photographed in to the open.

Here's a video of of the wind-up birds:

wind-up bird(s) from hc gilje on Vimeo.