BRAVEST BIRDS ON THE BLOCK

Friction inevitably takes place among backyard visitors, and scientists share how to help create some calm

- KELSEY ROSETH

ENVISION AN EPISODE of your favorite workplace sitcom centering around a protagonist's troubles, triumphs and, at times, failures. When it comes to TV, we love watching drama unfold.

The next time your heart races at the sight of a squabble between backyard birds, remember this comparison. The behavior is normal and showcases fascinating parallels between how birds and humans handle conflict.

Mindset Matters

The emotional upset we experience when witnessing our feathered friends fighting is called anthropomorphizing. That means we're attributing common human characteristics or behaviors to them.

Humans' social behavior is complex and nuanced. We present ourselves differently in various situations to achieve a conscious or subconscious goal. Birds are bright, but ultimately they are fighting to survive. And while many of us dislike strife, birds do too! Both humans and birds go out of their way to avoid ruffling feathers.

Citizen Science Research

When it comes to backyard battles, there are some consistent winners and losers. Eliot T. Miller, a Schmidt Science postdoctoral fellow based at The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, has studied birds' interactions extensively based on behavioral research from Project FeederWatch data.

"The idea was to ultimately collect a big enough dataset that we could address some big-scale, macroecological questions," Eliot says.