IS IT BOLLOCKS?

Film Buff investigates the facts behind outlandish movie plots.

Could Hitchcock’s Birds attack really happen?

THIS MONTH THE BIRDS

In the 1963 Alfred Hitchcock horror classic, avians gang up together to attack humans and cause havoc. Bird-brained, or worth getting in a real flap about?

DR. JIM REYNOLDS LECTURER IN ORNITHOLOGY & ANIMAL CONSERVATION, UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM

Birds such as common starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) do gather in large flocks (‘murmurations’) and sometimes such avian assemblages can appear to be ‘superorganisms’ because of the way that birds interact in such a coordinated manner, but do they communicate en masse? We know some species that migrate over long distances coordinate their flying activities to reduce their energetic expenditure. For example, ibises migrating in V-formations appear able to adapt their own wing beats to those of their neighbours to reduce flight costs, but we don’t know if this results from direct communications between birds.

We often hear of gulls attacking people for their chips at the seaside and single flying Australian magpies can attack humans on foot and even on bicycles if they are within their breeding territories. I work in a massive seabird colony in the South Atlantic where there are 500,000 pairs of terns. They readily attack us if we approach their nests too closely, sometimes drawing blood. The closest scenario to The Birds is what we call ‘crow courts’, where a group of crows (ravens do it, too) attack an intruding crow who does not belong (or has wronged them) and the intruder is killed. There is some anecdotal evidence that the Eurasian magpie (Pica pica) will group together to attack young rabbits and squirrels, but I would guess that ‘kills’ are relatively rare events. VERDICT BOLLOCKS