They’re considered an emblem of the festive season and are known for their chirpy, inquisitive nature around humans.
But robins are not immune to losing their temperature and can become aggressive when there’s noise, a new study shows.
In experiments, researchers from the UK and Turkey played traffic noise to both rural and urban robins using speakers fixed to trees.
They found that the sound of traffic made rural robins – but not urban robins – ‘more physically aggressive’, likely because the noise interfered with their birdsong.
Robins have a reputation for being tame and even friendly around humans, especially in comparison with other birds. However, with other robins they are very territorial and will chase away any other intruding birds from their patch. Scientists have found that human-made noise pollution causes robins living in rural areas to become more physically aggressive (file photo)
According to the experts, aggression from a robin can come in the form of strange physical movements, including head swaying and extension of the neck.
The study was conducted by experts at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) in Cambridge and Koç University in Istanbul and published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology.
‘Human activity has an enormous effect on wildlife, including on their social behaviour,’ the team say in their paper.
‘Animals living in urban areas often tend to be more aggressive than those living in rural areas, which may be due to urban acoustic noise making communication between individuals more difficult.’
Robins have a reputation for being tame and even friendly around humans, especially in comparison with other birds.
However, with other robins they are very territorial and will chase away any other intruding birds from their patch.
As well as adapting their songs to ward off intruders, robins put on displays of physical movements during territorial interactions, which can also include moving closer to the intruder.
For their study, the team investigated the behaviour of male European robins (Erithacus rubecula) living in urban parks and rural forests in and around Istanbul.
They measured aggression towards another robin intruder, which wasn’t a real robib but instead a 3D-printed model in the shape of an adult bird, hand-painted to look like the real thing.
The fake robin was fitted with a speaker, through which the team could play audio, and then attached to trees at the parks and forests.
For their study, the team investigated the behaviour of male European robins in urban parks and rural forests in Turkey. Pictured, a real robin (top) having noticed the researchers’ 3D-printed fake robin
The audio consisted of recordings of robin songs, while additional traffic noise was added through another separate speaker nearby.
After recording the birds’ behaviour during interactions with the fake intruder, they found the urban robins typically displayed more physical aggression than rural robins.
However, rural robins became more aggressive with the addition of traffic noise – possibly because they’re less used to traffic noise than urban birds, which are already living in noisier habitats.
What’s more, physical displays of territoriality could increase because the traffic noise interferes with their birdsong.
‘In normally quiet surroundings, we found that additional traffic noise leads to rural robins becoming more physically aggressive, for instance approaching the model bird more closely,’ said study author Dr Caglar Akcay at ARU.
‘We believe this is because the noise is interfering with their communication.’
During the tests on urban robins, the traffic noise did not affect levels of physical aggression, although they adapted to the noise by reducing their rate of birdsong.
Human activity has an enormous effect on wildlife, including on their social behavior. Animals in urban areas tend to be more aggressive than those in rural areas, which may be due to urban acoustic noise making communication between individuals more difficult (file photo)
The researchers suspect that urban robins have learned to ‘sit out’ temporary increases in noise whereas rural robins have not and so show increased physical aggression.
Overall, by comparing urban and rural robin reactions, the study provides a valuable glimpse into how urban-living species adapt to ‘life in a noisy world’.
‘We know that human activity can have a significant impact on the long-term social behaviour of wildlife,’ said Dr Akcay.
‘Our results show that human-produced noise can have a range of effects on robins, depending on the habitat they live in.’
The team warn that physical aggression is risky for small birds like robins and is likely to have health consequences.
A 2018 study found birds surrounded by noise develop the same symptoms as humans that suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
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