Monday, April 16, 2018, 16:30 -
Most people probably wouldn’t consider bustling towns and cities good places
for nature to thrive. Yet a few species of birds have so successfully adapted
to city living that they boast large and thriving urban populations. Now,
research has suggested that the success of these city-dwelling species may lie
in their behaviour.
Urban habitats are quite
different to the natural environments in which birds evolved. Cities are noisy
places, they are lit almost continually with artificial
lights and they contain an abundance
of food. Cities are also full of people. This means birds living
there rarely get any peace and must cope with almost constant disturbance from
both humans and their pets.
But birds living in cities are
known to be much more tolerant of human disturbance than their rural
compatriots. In a study of 44 European bird species, all but
four allowed
humans to approach them more closely in cities than in rural habitats. This
suggests that city birds are bolder in the face of a potential threat.
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