Polite Birds Gesture 'After You' with Their Wings

Researchers studying birds called Japanese Tits, relatives of the chickadees and titmice in North America, noticed that mates raising chicks together often fluttered their wings near the entrance of their nest box. After recording hundreds of examples of this behavior, it became clear that the wing-flutter was a signal for the other bird to enter first, much like that arm-sweeping gesture that people use to mean, “after you.”

BirdNote®
Polite Birds Gesture “After You” with Their Wings
Written by Conor Gearin

This is BirdNote.

[Japanese Tit calls]

Some of us like to talk with our hands. At one time, scientists thought only primates used their limbs to gesture and signal to other individuals. More recently, we’ve learned a number of animals can point to something to communicate with another member of their species.

But one gesture was thought unique to humans. You might use it when you reach a door at the same time as someone else: after you. No, after you.

[Japanese Tit calls]

Researchers studying birds called Japanese Tits, relatives of the chickadees and titmice in North America, noticed that mates raising chicks together often fluttered their wings near the entrance of their nest box. Knowing these birds have complex ways of communicating through sound, the researchers began carefully observing them to see what the wing fluttering might mean.

[Japanese Tit calls and wing flutter]

After recording hundreds of examples of wing fluttering, the pattern became clear: the first bird to wing-flutter would politely wait at the nest entrance while the other one entered. So the wing flutter was a signal — much like that arm-sweeping gesture that people use to mean, “after you.”

[Japanese Tit calls]

Following this discovery, scientists are paying even closer attention to what birds might be saying with their wings.

[Japanese Tit calls and wing flutter]

For BirdNote, I’m Michael Stein.

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Producer: Mark Bramhill
Managing Editor: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Conor Gearin
Content Director: Jonese Franklin
With thanks to Katie Meyer for this idea.
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Japanese Tit ML182691171, ML182690211, and ML182690221 recorded by Andrew Spencer.
Xeno Canto 882609 recorded by Goro.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2024 BirdNote July 2024
Narrator: Michael Stein

ID# gesture-01-2024-07-08 gesture-01

Reference:
https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0960982224000307