Are You Looking At Me?

By Mark Steer

It's often been said that birds can tell when your eyes are wandering, and now it's been proved beyond doubt - for starlings at least.

New research has demonstrated for the first time that the birds notice and respond to the direction of a person's gaze.

Julia Carter and her colleagues at the University of Bristol set up experiments that showed starlings will keep away from their food dish if a human is looking at it. However, if the person is just as close, but their eyes are turned away, the birds will happily start feeding.

"This is a great example of how animals can pick up on very subtle signals and use them to their own advantage," Carter told the Null. "Predators which are looking straight at you are much more likely to attack than those which are looking away."

Reports that Chinese women are training starlings to spot ogling perves are unfounded.

Homing in on such subtle cues is an ability that is probably not exclusive to starlings. Carter expects that many social species, such as crows, would also respond to eye gaze. Other birds, however, don't. "The only other birds to be tested in this way are sparrows," she said, "and they didn't respond at all." She didn't add that sparrows are completely thick, but we could hear her thinking it.

That the birds are able to tell when they're getting the evil eye doesn't necessarily mean they understand that they, or we, are self-aware. A conclusion that other researchers might jump to.

"If this research had been carried out on chimps, people would be very quick to say that they can understand what people are thinking," said Arthur Goldsmith, who leads the research group. "However, it's perfectly possible to understand that our starlings can be responding to simple, if subtle, environmental cues."

Goldsmith continued, "When it comes to ascribing conscious thought and higher intelligence to animals, I think we should be more cautious." Before adding, with a non-too-subtle nod towards government funding bodies,"It requires a great deal of further research."

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