2020. City Birds Tolerate Annoying Human Neighbors
December 18, 2020
Open gallery
Study proves that city birds are braver than we thought. What do they really think of us? If they could speak, what would they say? #bravebirds
By Gregory Gisser
Birds in city environments have been shown to adapt well to urbanization. Purchase students Yesllen, Maria, Erika, and Kyra set out to prove this hypothesis by measuring rural and urban birds’ flight initiation distances. This was in order to analyze the tolerance that they possessed around humans. They measured the boldness of birds in four locations, two urban and two rural. Using the same brand of birdseed, the students measured how long it would take for the birds to get spooked and fly away. They conducted ten trials over the course of three weeks.
The urban birds proved to be bolder than their rural counterparts. By using flight initiation distance as their method of measurement, they were able to collect enough data to analyze their results. The rural birds showed that they were more likely to be afraid of humans. Since urban birds had to acclimate to a densely populated human environment, they naturally became less vigilant of people.