Posted on 04/30/2008 11:26:08 AM PDT by LibWhacker
Birds can tell if you are watching them - because they are watching you.
In humans, the eyes are said to be the 'window to the soul', conveying much about a person's emotions and intentions. New research demonstrates for the first time that starlings also respond to a human's gaze.
Predators tend to look at their prey when they attack, so direct eye-gaze can predict imminent danger. Julia Carter, a PhD student at the University of Bristol, and her colleagues, set up experiments that showed starlings will keep away from their food dish if a human is looking at it. However, if the person is just as close, but their eyes are turned away, the birds resumed feeding earlier and consumed more food overall.
Carter said "This is a great example of how animals can pick up on very subtle signals and use them to their own advantage". Her results are published online today (30 April) in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Wild starlings are highly social and will quickly join others at a productive foraging patch. This leads to foraging situations that are highly competitive. An individual starling that assesses a relatively low predation risk, and responds by returning more quickly to a foraging patch (as in the study), will gain valuable feeding time before others join the patch.
Responses to obvious indicators of risk - a predator looming overhead or the fleeing of other animals - are well documented, but Carter argued that a predator's head orientation and eye-gaze direction are more subtle indicators of risk, and useful since many predators orient their head and eyes towards their prey as they attack.
This research describes the first explicit demonstration of a bird responding to a live predator's eye-gaze direction. Carter added: "By responding to these subtle eye-gaze cues, starlings would gain a competitive advantage over individuals that are not so observant. This work highlights the importance of considering even very subtle signals that might be used in an animal's decision-making process."
Do these birds understand that a human is looking at them, and that they might pose some risk? As yet, this question has not been answered. But whether or not the responses involve some sort of theory of mind, and whether or not they are innate or acquired, the result is that starlings are able to discriminate the very subtle eye-gaze cues of a nearby live predator and adjust their anti-predator responses in a beneficial manner.
This research was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council and the University of Bristol.
Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Bristol University
But they still aren’t smart enough to know when I am going to blast them out of the sky.
Explains a lot... Maybe even why some people don't like to be stared at?
Well look at the size of the bird's brain. Do you suppose their is a fully function human brain in there that is able to reason?
No kidding. Western gulls will stand there and stare you down until you fork over some bread from your sandwich. ;)
No. Not human. Far more ancient and far more subtle.
I seem to be growing birdies in the bowl of my light kit on my patio fan.
Yes, they are ALL STARING AT ME.
“So she takes the Parrot out of the freezer and he asks her; “Lady, can I ask, what did the Turkey do?”
I can confirm my observation that doves are aware of being observed, and that it makes them panicky.
I had a duck try that with me a few days ago while I was having lunch on a patio; after ignoring his stares, he went into my trouser pocket and tried to help himself. Far as I know, he wasn't an illegal duck.
They get in my shop and fly around crapping on our machnes, we show no mercy.
As soon as you pick up a pellet gun and start watching them they can sense it and won’t stay still long enough to get a good bead on them. Stop looking at them and they settle right down long enough to get a shot off.
The guys in the shop all fight over who’s turn it is to get rid of the birds, if they miss they are ridiculed mercilessly for being a crappy shot.
I'm going to later fix the light to not have this happen again, but the patio is covered and big enough so that I can put up a couple of other places against walls where the birds can continue to have nests.
I have no problems with birds, the nests and all that.
I have problems with them over the center of the patio in the light where I might like to sit and eat BBQ.
Plus, like the article says. They stare at me, they follow my every move.
(Harmonizing) Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl, Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl....
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