Why do birds hit obstacles in front of me?

Birds tend to collide with big artificial structures such as windows of office buildings, transmission lines, and turbines of wind power generation for some reason. Some people may have seen a bird that tackles on the glass window many times from inside the room.

From a human being, I can not quite understand why they do not notice objects in front of me, but that should be it. Studies have revealed that such things that can be called collision accidents of birds have occurred due to the fact that their viewing mechanism is different from humans.

Why are birds susceptible to collision accidents, for the following reasons?Not so eagle eyed: New study reveals why birds collide with human-made objects

A recently published study in IBIS magazine shows how the world seems to be visible in the eyes of a bird and why they can not successfully overwhelm huge structures such as steel towers and wind turbines, I outline a new approach to understand the reason.

Especially concerning the death of birds colliding with structures, animal protection groups are particularly concerned. Among studies, the mortality rate of birds caused by collision with artifacts suggests that it is the main reason why birds are deprived of life worldwide. It is estimated that in Europe, for about 16 years, approximately 25% of storks in the stork and 6% of adults have died of collision with transmission lines and the resulting electrocution.

"The appearance that birds are colliding with huge structures over and over for several times looks like a strange situation from humans.But birds, however, live in a visual world different from humans, so the bird's point of view It is necessary to understand, "said Professor Graham Martin of Birmingham University who conducted the research.

In order to understand more clearly how birds are seeing the world, Professor Martin focuses on perceptual societal ecology, examines whether perceptual information forms the basis of the action taken by animals, and that behavior It also investigated the interaction between the environment and the environment.

Professor Martin suggested that the solutions of bird crash accidents that have been proposed so far were devised from the human point of view and what is dangerous to birds, not from birds but from the viewpoint of human observers I have judged that the problem does not converge.

Professor Martin says, "When birds fly in the sky, when heads are looking downwards to see under the eyes, thinking about the possibility of seeing that direction using both eyes or using only one side of the field of view These behaviors are derived from seeds, but in any case, I will not temporarily look at the direction of travel "as the behavior is that the birds are not always looking forward It suggests.


He then proceeded the investigation under the assumption that birds' field of view is not being read out of the details of the space, but rather optimized to detect moving objects. For birds it is more important to hunt more accurately to distinguish moving objects than the ability to accurately see objects in front of them. Furthermore, most species of birds are impossible to fly slowly, as birds have limitations in their ability to adjust their flight speed. Therefore, if information from view is limited by rain, fog, and darkness, adapting to that situation becomes quite difficult, which makes it more difficult to perceive the surrounding situation in that situation.

"After understanding the perception of birds, we can start thinking about a better solution about the problem of bird crash," Martin repeatedly warns. "The solution may be to change the countermeasure for each type of bird, and it is often adopted as a method to notice birds by displaying dangers in a noticeable way so that they can also be seen, It may be much more effective to deflect your flight path. As birds are more likely to see both sides and lower than the front, instead of putting warning signals etc. in only one place, warning with sounds and signals, distance from objects with a danger of collision It might be more efficient to let them.

"When human beings evaluate and understand something, they tend to consider only the method viewed from their own point of view, but due to such attitudes, the problem of bird collision accident rather moves away from the way to solution The evidence outlined in this study explains why specific species are more likely to conflict with obstacles than other species and will help to develop guidelines that will reduce collision accidents It will be, "Professor Martin summarizes.