Turns out the sound of traffic is annoying to more than just people. Scientists have discovered that certain bird species are also irritated by the sounds of nearby traffic noise. Who would have thought that birds could get road rage too?
Birds Get Road Rage From Sound Of Traffic
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In the case of fight or flight, these birds are opting to fight. And we thought people were the only ones who got aggressive during traffic jams. Turns out that birds can get road rage too. Or at least certain species. The NY Post shares that " Scientists have found that certain songbirds in the Galapagos behave more aggressively around traffic noise." The reason they find it so irksome is because the traffic sounds drown out their warning calls.
Without other birds hearing these warning calls, fights often ensue. Dr. Caglar Akcay, a Senior Lecturer in Behavioral Ecology at Anglia Ruskin University, further explained this matter. He shared how birds use song as an aggressive signal to claim territories. Then he shared, "However, if external noise such as traffic interferes with the signaling, effectively blocking this communication channel, increasing physical aggression would be an appropriate response."
How Scientists Learned That Birds Can Get Road Rage
Scientists decided to test how much traffic sounds annoyed these songbirds in the Galapagos. So, they "played avian songs over a loudspeaker at 38 locations populated by male yellow warblers." The scientists chose different locations to test their theories. NY Post reports, "Twenty of the sites were located around 164 feet from the nearest road while the remaining 18 were located 328 feet away.
Then, they played two different soundtracks for these birds. The first soundtrack just contained "the song of a rival male yellow warbler". However the second contained that same song as well as traffic sounds. The results were astounding. They showed that the male songbirds that lived closer to the roads acted more aggressively when exposed to the traffic sounds, than those birds that lived further away.
This study highlights how human behavior and interference can significantly impact wildlife and their behavior. It also shows that everyone, even the birds find traffic ridiculously irritating.
