When birds look for food, they don’t rely on just one sense. They can use what they see, what they smell, or a combination of both. But which sense matters most—and does it depend on where a bird lives?
In this episode, we explore a study on great tits, a common songbird found in both forests and cities at a window bird feeder across Europe. Researchers trained birds to associate food with both a color and a smell, then tested which cues the birds paid attention to when the signals were separated.
The results revealed something surprising. Urban birds relied more on smell, while forest birds relied more on sight when searching for food. Even though vision is often considered the dominant sense in birds, city life appears to shift priorities—possibly because smells help birds locate food in cluttered, human-made environments.
This episode shows that birds are flexible decision-makers. Their senses are not fixed tools but adaptable strategies shaped by the environments they live in—especially as cities continue to change how animals find food.
