In Super Mario Bros. 2, Birdos spit eggs exactly every 4.26 seconds, or 256 frames. An expert player who is trained to be able to count these intervals would be able to pause the game strategically shortly before the frame in question, which would cause the Birdo to not spit the egg. Compare the clips of the same game state with no pausing on the left and pausing at the correct time on the right.
Unfortunately, this trick is of very limited use since grabbing the eggs and throwing them back is the way most Birdos are defeated in the first place. However, it does still work on the fireball-spitting green and gray Birdos that are defeated with other items in the environment (though they have different timing due to spitting three fireballs in a row).
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