I have a similar story. I was taxiing a Cessna 152 at LHBS. It is a big grassy field. On that day there were a large flock of black birds sitting on the grass. I made the usual radio call to announce that I'm leaving the runway and taxiing to the tie-downs when the birds flitted away just between my airplane's nose and my destination. The birds outside of that "road" by roughly a wingspan distance remained on the ground and kept doing whatever they were doing. And the ones who took to the air settled back a short distance away from my future path.
Now just to clarify I don't think the birds were listening on my radio call. The way I explained it to myself is that they were observing airplanes coming and going long enough that they learned that if an airplane hesitates at that point the next thing they will do is to turn towards the tie-down area. Or maybe it was just randomness. Or maybe as I was making the radio call I already started turning and they just got scarred away by my engine noise.
I see pigeons and sparrows dodge cars by inches, too. For that matter I do the same myself! Sparrows hawk insects out of the air, and I believe starlings also. Predicting motion would need to be second nature, I think. Like skillfully catching a ball, but much more so and between your teeth...
At the main bus port of my city, you can see heaps and heaps of pigeons casually strolling right in front and even below the buses while they are still driving. There definitely has to be learned behavior for the pigeons to be so completely devoid of fear in that situation.
I'm not an ornithologist but I think birds integrate some onboard magnetic compass sensors. So, it would be interesting if they can pick up the magnetic part of an electromagnetic wave of the radio. Seems very low likelihood but would be cool.
"Picking up" and "discerning useful data" are very different.
I'm not even talking about "deciphering". Even knowing that energy in a certain bandwidth means planes about to leave seems a large jump - and a radio tuned to a station is likely an order of magnitude more stringent than an animal's sensory abilities.
I read somewhere that migrating birds often use human infrastructure - roads, railways, power lines, etc - as landmarks or even "route markers" for their migrations.
A bit of a shower thought, but I think you can probably generalize that idea: Most birds spend a significant part of their life in the air, looking down onto human-designed landscapes. The aerial view of our cities is probably as familiar to them as our neighborhood streets are to us.
But unlike Google Maps, they see the city moving - all the cars, pedestrians, trams, railways, etc. It seems likely to me that if this is what you see day-in, day-out, because it is literally the space you are living in, you will pick up some general patterns in what you see and might even start to experiment how those patterns can be exploited.
> Most birds spend a significant part of their life in the air, looking down onto human-designed landscapes. The aerial view of our cities is probably as familiar to them as our neighborhood streets are to us.
The opening few chapters of Perdido Street Station does a great job of conveying this difference.
> Cooper’s hawk is on a rather short list of bird of prey species that have successfully adapted to life in cities. A city is a difficult and very dangerous habitat for any bird, but particularly for a large raptor specializing in live prey: you have to avoid windows, cars, utility wires, and countless other dangers while catching something to eat every day.
Peregrine falcons adapted quite well, and they're much more sizeable. That said, their size make them very apt to hunt pigeons, so this could be a less risky niche to hunt for; I mean, pigeons usually fly higher up than sparrows.
The Black Redstart evolved to live in holes in cliffs and the like, and never used to be widespread in the UK. After the second world war, cities all over the south were bombed out, and they moved into the deserted, derelict bombed areas in great numbers. As the bomb sites were cleared and the cities redeveloped, their habitat was eroded. But at the same time, Britain was de-industrialising, and they moved into the abandoned factories in the North. As those now get redeveloped, they are losing their habitat again.
Even his death (due to a collision with a building) was likely less because of his ability to survive, since he managed to learn all the skills necessary, and more due to the fact that his primary food source, rats in and around the city, were laden with rat poison.
We have consistently and regularly underestimated non human animals cognitive abilities which is frankly strange if you understand evolution since it would be strange for only humans to have a certain evolutionary feature such as intelligence and every other species to not have it at all.
> underestimated non human animals cognitive abilities
I think humans have done precisely what humans do: misunderstand. Unlike other animals, humans don't have the ability to understand creatures they have not studied for long periods of time.
We know animals are intelligent. But we don't know what intelligence means. Is it something we can use? no? then it is something we ignore. And it is most likely something we disrespect.
In big Swiss cities, I believe its a red kite thats a common sight. I mean really common, always some of them up in skies in central Zurich, Lausanne or Geneva.
It feels surreal in best way possible, I come from eastern Europe and cities back home are always a mix of crows, pigeons and little birds, mostly sprigs and sparrows. Birds of prey - thats stuff for wilderness only.
One more thing to adapt to, not complaining at all though. To be clear - these are not megacities, but still sizeable enough to expect wilderness was driven away to mountains which are never too far here, especially for birds.
There are Peregrine falcons in my city. I remember walking downtown one time and seeing one on the sidewalk with a pigeon in its talons. All the commuters and I just walked around it. Really weird somehow.
London apparently has a high density of them (but high density still only means something like 40 breeding pairs), and some people are all excited about the prospect that they can do something about the rapidly rising wild parakeet population...
> Peregrine falcons adapted quite well, and they're much more sizeable.
I'm not sure what you mean. As far as I am aware -- and according to every source I've looked at in the last few minutes -- Peregrine falcons and Cooper's hawks are about the same size (length and wingspan are within 1-2 inches).
Peregrines are somewhat smaller and much more lightly built. I live in a nesting pair's territory which often sees transitory Cooper's; they're easy to distinguish both in flight and at rest. Male Cooper's are more peregrine-sized and hard to tell from sharp-shinned hawks sometimes, but that is an ordinary enough sexual dimorphism in birds.
Interestingly, while peregrines and accipiters like Cooper's share a habit of taking passerines in flight, the response of potential prey seems to differ. I frequently see songbirds mob a Cooper's; I can't think offhand of a time I've seen them respond to a peregrine other than by crypsis.
> Total length of full-grown birds can vary from 35 to 46 cm (14 to 18 in) in males and 42 to 50 cm (17 to 20 in) in females. Wingspan may range from 62 to 99 cm (24 to 39 in), with an average of around 84 cm (33 in)
> In northern Florida, males averaged 288 g (10.2 oz) and females averaged 523 g (1.153 lb). In general, males may weigh anywhere from 215 to 390 g (7.6 to 13.8 oz) and females anywhere from 305.8 to 701 g (0.674 to 1.545 lb), the lightest hawks generally being juveniles recorded from the Goshutes of Nevada, the heaviest known being adults from Wisconsin
(not putting the full regional rundown, just the biggest entry)
In my neighborhood in the East Valley in Phoenix, I’ve seen Cooper’s hawks, kestrels, peregrine falcons, zone tailed hawks, merlins, and one immature bald eagle. Along with the numerous turkey vultures and the occasional black vulture.
Plus pigeons are not exactly known for being incredibly smart or agile, so if you're big enough to take one down, you probably won't struggle too much for food.
Pigeons are actually known for being very agile, and are able to do vertical takeoffs and evasive maneuvers like a backflip loop immediately after takeoff, which is precisely to evade predators like falcons.
City pigeons just tend to become fat, lazy and used to suppressing their flee response around traffic and people.
Pigeons fly surprisingly fast and can outfly smaller raptors in a straight line. A stooping (diving) Peregrine will usually win. Its strike may decapitate the pigeon which tends to minimise the struggling
I once wrote a personal’s ad in SQL on Craigslist, back when they had that section. A DBA replied and asked if I wanted hawking. She had a Cooper’s hawk. I met her at a commercial park in a Saturday morning. She was driving a Honda CRV, the hawk was in the front passenger seat, and I hopped into the back seat.
She started driving and spotted some crows. The hawk saw them as well. Wearing a “don’t kill me either your claws” glove, she moved her hand to the hawk, who gleefully jumped on. She rolled down her window, stuck the hawk outside, and it was basically a drive by shooting with a bird bullet. This happened three times.
My most vivid memory of this was her ripping the crows apart into pieces and putting the then into a bucket, like it was sushi you’d order from KFC.
This is one of those stories that just keeps escalating into "am I in a dream or a side quest?" territory... Also, "sushi you’d order from KFC" is going to haunt me
I've watched karasu carefully wait for a yellow light to drop his walnut in an intersection. The last car passing cracked his nut, then he had time to gather the meat during the light change before other cars came along.
Some crows in Japan do something like that, dropping nuts on/near a pedestrian crossing, and waiting for a green pedestrian light. See https://youtu.be/BGPGknpq3e0?feature=shared
Wow... It's not just that the hawk figured out a clever hunting tactic, it's how it did it: linking an auditory cue (the pedestrian signal) with a future visual scenario (a longer car line) and then using that cover to hunt. That's a level of abstraction and planning you don't usually associate with birds
You do associate those traits with birds in the raven family.
I figure the usual association with birds or perhaps animals in general is still mostly based on ‘humans smart; animals dumb’ instead of actual research.
Readit News
Now just to clarify I don't think the birds were listening on my radio call. The way I explained it to myself is that they were observing airplanes coming and going long enough that they learned that if an airplane hesitates at that point the next thing they will do is to turn towards the tie-down area. Or maybe it was just randomness. Or maybe as I was making the radio call I already started turning and they just got scarred away by my engine noise.
Edit to add https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/08/230828130356.h... . What frequency were you at? Seems they may actually be listening.
I'm not even talking about "deciphering". Even knowing that energy in a certain bandwidth means planes about to leave seems a large jump - and a radio tuned to a station is likely an order of magnitude more stringent than an animal's sensory abilities.
Very cool article. But it sounds like that would be out of the likely range?
A bit of a shower thought, but I think you can probably generalize that idea: Most birds spend a significant part of their life in the air, looking down onto human-designed landscapes. The aerial view of our cities is probably as familiar to them as our neighborhood streets are to us.
But unlike Google Maps, they see the city moving - all the cars, pedestrians, trams, railways, etc. It seems likely to me that if this is what you see day-in, day-out, because it is literally the space you are living in, you will pick up some general patterns in what you see and might even start to experiment how those patterns can be exploited.
The opening few chapters of Perdido Street Station does a great job of conveying this difference.
Peregrine falcons adapted quite well, and they're much more sizeable. That said, their size make them very apt to hunt pigeons, so this could be a less risky niche to hunt for; I mean, pigeons usually fly higher up than sparrows.
https://albi.fr/environnement/les-faucons-pelerins
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albi_Cathedral
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flaco_(owl)
Even his death (due to a collision with a building) was likely less because of his ability to survive, since he managed to learn all the skills necessary, and more due to the fact that his primary food source, rats in and around the city, were laden with rat poison.
We have consistently and regularly underestimated non human animals cognitive abilities which is frankly strange if you understand evolution since it would be strange for only humans to have a certain evolutionary feature such as intelligence and every other species to not have it at all.
I think humans have done precisely what humans do: misunderstand. Unlike other animals, humans don't have the ability to understand creatures they have not studied for long periods of time.
We know animals are intelligent. But we don't know what intelligence means. Is it something we can use? no? then it is something we ignore. And it is most likely something we disrespect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=TMRRsBh5GDI
I spend too much time on this...
It feels surreal in best way possible, I come from eastern Europe and cities back home are always a mix of crows, pigeons and little birds, mostly sprigs and sparrows. Birds of prey - thats stuff for wilderness only.
One more thing to adapt to, not complaining at all though. To be clear - these are not megacities, but still sizeable enough to expect wilderness was driven away to mountains which are never too far here, especially for birds.
Small, but majestic nonetheless.
I'm not sure what you mean. As far as I am aware -- and according to every source I've looked at in the last few minutes -- Peregrine falcons and Cooper's hawks are about the same size (length and wingspan are within 1-2 inches).
Interestingly, while peregrines and accipiters like Cooper's share a habit of taking passerines in flight, the response of potential prey seems to differ. I frequently see songbirds mob a Cooper's; I can't think offhand of a time I've seen them respond to a peregrine other than by crypsis.
I may be mistaken but that's what I found:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peregrine_falcon
> The peregrine falcon has a body length of 34 to 58 cm (13–23 in) and a wingspan from 74 to 120 cm (29–47 in)
> Males weigh 330 to 1,000 g (12–35 oz) and the noticeably larger females weigh 700 to 1,500 g (25–53 oz)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper%27s_hawk
> Total length of full-grown birds can vary from 35 to 46 cm (14 to 18 in) in males and 42 to 50 cm (17 to 20 in) in females. Wingspan may range from 62 to 99 cm (24 to 39 in), with an average of around 84 cm (33 in)
> In northern Florida, males averaged 288 g (10.2 oz) and females averaged 523 g (1.153 lb). In general, males may weigh anywhere from 215 to 390 g (7.6 to 13.8 oz) and females anywhere from 305.8 to 701 g (0.674 to 1.545 lb), the lightest hawks generally being juveniles recorded from the Goshutes of Nevada, the heaviest known being adults from Wisconsin
(not putting the full regional rundown, just the biggest entry)
City pigeons just tend to become fat, lazy and used to suppressing their flee response around traffic and people.
She started driving and spotted some crows. The hawk saw them as well. Wearing a “don’t kill me either your claws” glove, she moved her hand to the hawk, who gleefully jumped on. She rolled down her window, stuck the hawk outside, and it was basically a drive by shooting with a bird bullet. This happened three times.
My most vivid memory of this was her ripping the crows apart into pieces and putting the then into a bucket, like it was sushi you’d order from KFC.
I feel I have to reply, but I have no idea what to say.
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I figure the usual association with birds or perhaps animals in general is still mostly based on ‘humans smart; animals dumb’ instead of actual research.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2025/05/hawk-new...
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/ethology/articles/10.33...