Birds are more afraid of women than men. Scientists have no idea why
Scientists have uncovered a strange pattern in urban bird behavior: Across five European countries and 37 species, birds consistently fled sooner when approached by women than men. Researchers have no clear explanation for the difference, raising intriguing questions about how birds recognize and respond to humans.
Key points
- Urban birds in five European countries flew away sooner when approached by women than by men, with men able to get about one meter closer on average.
- The pattern held across all 37 bird species studied and in Czechia, France, Germany, Poland and Spain, but researchers have no conclusive explanation.
- The team suggests birds may detect cues such as pheromones, body shape or walking style, and says follow-up studies are needed.
A study of urban birds in five European countries found that birds tend to take flight sooner when a woman approaches than when a man does. Male and female participants, matched for height and clothing, walked toward birds in city parks and other green spaces.
On average, men could approach about one meter closer than women before the birds flew away, a measure the researchers call flight initiation distance. The study was published in the British Ecological Society journal People and Nature.
Pattern across cities and species
The same difference appeared in Czechia, France, Germany, Poland and Spain, and across all 37 bird species examined. These included great tits, house sparrows, blackbirds, easily startled magpies and pigeons that usually allow people to come much closer.
The researchers say the results suggest city birds can tell male and female humans apart, but they have not determined which characteristics the birds recognize or why they are more cautious around women.
I fully believe our results, that urban birds react differently based on the sex of the person approaching them, but I can't explain them right now.
— Professor Daniel Blumstein
Possible explanations remain untested
The team has proposed several possible causes, including chemical signals such as pheromones, differences in body shape and differences in how men and women walk. The researchers describe these ideas as speculative and say more experiments are needed to find the actual cause.
The study involved 2,701 observations, and the researchers stress the findings are preliminary. They say further work is needed to establish whether the difference appears consistently in other settings and populations.
