Justin Thyme A bird lands on a string over a bowl of water. Will the bird get wet? (Mouse over the illustration for a hint. Click and hold for another hint. With the help of these hints, you can quickly figure out whether the bird will get wet or not without having to do any calculations.)

Hi folks. I’ve returned from my vacation, and the Monday Puzzle resumes today with a challenge to welcome the coming of Spring. It has been designed by our graphical maven, Justin Thyme. This puzzle continues on the theme of balance and slippage that characterized his previous contribution which became our most popular puzzle ever, the Slippery Slope Puzzle. Justin has also come up with an interesting game of strategy and suspense that hinges on guessing the number of comments this post will attract.

First, take a look at the very interesting illustration above, featuring a bird approaching a string that’s draped over two pulleys and attached to a golden weight at either end (in the shape of the sun and the moon respectively). Here are some facts about this setup:

A) The bowl of water is two feet wide.
B) The moon is six feet from the edge of the bowl closest to it.
C) The sun (golden globe resting on the bowl) and moon are at the same level.
D) The pulley over the moon is three times as high as the one over the sun as measured from the water’s surface.
E) The sun weighs two pounds. The moon and bird each weigh a pound.

1. The bird alights on the string, which sags under the bird’s weight. Assume that as the bird lands, it slides freely along the string. Will the bird slide over and land in the water, or will it stay dry? What will the final position of the moon be? (Assume that if the moon or sun gets lifted up all the way to the pulley, they get stuck there.)

Once you have solved the basic puzzle, there is scope for endless variations in this scenario.

2. Imagine that the bird can hold onto the string so tightly that it does not slide along the string. What will happen then if the bird alights at points a) one-quarter of the distance between the two pulleys, b) halfway between the two pulleys and c) three-quarters of the way between the two pulleys? What will the final position of the moon be in each case?

3. In scenarios 1 and 2 above, what happens if the weight of the bird is a) half a pound, or b) two pounds? What will the final position of the moon be in all these scenarios?

And now: our game of strategy and suspense. The game is called Guess the Number of Comments. You will have to guess the total number of comments that readers make on this blog post each day as the comments accumulate during the week.

Here are the rules:
1) you can submit one guess per day.
2) you can still submit as many non-guess comments as you’d like. Please make sure you have something meaningful to say in every comment posted. Insubstantial or nonsensical comments that are merely intended to game the system will not be posted and will not add to the comments tally.

A moderator will release comments early each morning. Comments will be released Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The five people who guess whose guesses are closest to the actual numbers will get honorable mentions. The winner will be the one with the best guesses over all five days.

For the word challenge today, note that the bird in the picture is a toucan. This suggests the obvious pun:
Q. How many can play at today’s puzzle?
A. Toucan!

Can you come up with questions that have single word answers that are puns on the names of animals or birds?

As usual, you can submit answers as comments here. We’ll award a copy of Martin Gardner’s book, “My Best Mathematical and Logic Puzzles,” to someone who comes up with an especially interesting answer to today’s puzzles or to someone who proposes a sufficiently intriguing puzzle for Lab readers to solve. (To submit a new puzzle, send an e-mail message with “NEW LAB PUZZLE” in the subject line to tierneylab@nytimes.com. Please include the solution to the puzzle and indicate whether or not the puzzle is original.) Thanks to Justin Thyme for today’s innovative puzzle.

Comments that contain interesting or well-explained answers will be highlighted, usually at the end of the week. Unless otherwise noted, highlighted comments will have correct answers.