Nature & Environment

Mystery as urban birds seem to be more scared of women than men

By T.K. Randall
April 29, 2026 ·  33 comments

Image: AI-generated (Midjourney) The peculiar phenomenon came to light following a new study by an international team of researchers who looked at how common urban birds reacted to being approached by different subjects.

The research, which involved having male and female participants approach multiple different bird species in five European countries, found striking consistency in the animals' reactions.

In total, 37 species - including pigeons, sparrows and blackbirds - were tested.

The findings clearly showed that the birds flew away more quickly when approached by a woman than when approached by a man (even when the participants were of a consistent height and wore the same clothes).As things stand, nobody can actually figure out why this should be the case.

A few possibilities have been suggested, such as the birds being more sensitive to female pheromones, but this remains entirely speculative.

"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," said study co-author Prof Daniel Blumstein from the University of California, Los Angeles.

"We used bleeding-edge comparative analysis techniques that showed our findings were consistent across cities and species, but we simply don't have a conclusive explanation yet."

Source: Phys.org | Comments (33)

Tags: Birds