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We think of wild birds as being shy creatures by nature. For those
of us who have kept a feeding station for birds in the winter so as
to have the pleasure of association with the chickadee, nuthatches,
woodpeckers, and other visitors, one of the most attractive things is
that the wild birds become tame. Through association with persons they
gradually learn that human beings are not to be feared. The high point
of many a bird lover's experience is when a chickadee becomes so tame
that it will perch on his body and without fear will feed from his hand.
It seems to be true that birds in wilderness areas are wilder and more
shy of men than those living about dwellings where they are protected.
This is notably true of the robin. In villages they hop around on the
ground unmindful of the near presence of humans. How different they are
in the wilderness, where the robins fly away apparently in great fear,
while the human intruder is still far distant.
It comes as a considerable surprise to find that here and there over
the world there are instances of birds with so little fear of humans
that they come and perch on them.
PERCHING ON PEOPLE In the Galápagos Islands, where the general
fearlessness of birds is famous, one of these cases is recorded. David
Lack, who was studying the biology of the Galápagos Islands' birds,
found when walking through the woods on Indefatigable Island that a
flycatcher would sometimes try to settle on his head. Lack stood still
and found the bird's object was to pull out some of his hair. The bird,
having failed to detach any of the hair of his head, tried, apparently
with no better success, to pull out hair from his eyebrows and then
from his chest. This was at the height of the breeding season and
apparently the bird was trying to get nesting material. This seemed
to be a usual type of behavior there, and Lack correlated it with the
general tameness of the birds on the islands.
There is a honey eater in Australia that includes in its pattern of
behavior perching on people's heads and shoulders and attempting to
pull out hair for use in its nest. A. H. Chisholm writes of going
to certain places and taking companions with him for the sake of
experiencing this, and the practice is so common with the species
that Australians refer to this honey eater as "the hair dresser."
In this case it is not tameness alone. The white-eared honey eater,
which indulges in this practice, is no more tame most of the time
than any of the other small local birds that live in that part of
Australia. Only at nesting time does it attempt to light on persons.
Chisholm correlates this hair-plucking trait with other habits of the
honey eater: he speaks of its gathering hair from such animals as rock
wallabies and gathering bristles from farmyard pigs and goats.
Our familiar phoebe has been recorded as perching on deer hunters
in the fall and using them as a vantage point from which to conduct
its hunting. This was in North Carolina, and the weather being warm,
mosquitoes were notably in evidence. The bird showed no sign of fear or
nervousness, but perched on the hunter's gun, on top of his head, and
various parts of his body, and then flew out and picked up mosquitoes.
As the hunter's face seemed to be attracting more mosquitoes the phoebe
directed his attentions there. In picking mosquitoes off his face the
sharp points of the bird's bill were noticeably felt at every capture
and the irritation caused by a succession of these pricks caused the
hunter to decide that he could take care of the mosquito situation
better without the help of the phoebe. As H. H. Brimley, the hunter,
put it "... my face was beginning to feel somewhat inflamed from the
frequent pecks to which it had been subjected so I called it a day and
told the phoebe to stop pestering me." This took place in a wild part
of North Carolina and Brimley suggested that the phoebe's abnormal lack
of fear was caused by its having never seen a human being before.