Birds have little fear of humans

I WAS sitting on the terrace of a hotel enjoying some autumn sunshine when a bird walked over my foot. It was a bit startling. A family of pied wagtails were busily working the terrace searching for whatever it is pied wagtails regard as food.

What this is has been a bit of a mystery to me because they seem to prefer foraging on open paved surfaces where you’d imagine there would be little that was nourishing.

Anyway, they paid no attention to all the people drinking coffee and pints and eating sandwiches. They just kept darting around with that peculiar mincing gait, half walk half run, that wagtails have. And one of them walked over my foot.

There’s something odd about wild birds and animals that have no fear of people. Most of the time it’s rather charming, particularly if it’s a pretty little bird such as a pied wagtail or a robin, but it does somehow seem contrary to the laws of nature. And if it’s a larger bird, a male swan, for example, it can make you distinctly uneasy. Alfred Hitchcock understood what I mean.

I don’t think fear of humans is a natural instinct in birds. Birds that very seldom see people, such as those living up in the high Arctic or on uninhabited islands, often show no sign of it. I think it’s something we have taught them by centuries of persecution. And now some wagtails, robins and house sparrows have learnt that modern Irish people are not going to kill them for food or sport and their close company brings benefits.

The same is probably true of swans, though the argument is complicated because many (though not all, according to the most modern research) mute swans are the descendants of domesticated or semi-domesticated birds.

It’s not so common amongst wild animals, but it does occur. An animal that often shows a brazen lack of fear in the presence of humans is the mink. Again the argument could be made that all Irish mink are descended from captive animals fed by humans on fur farms before they escaped or were released.

But I don’t find this convincing. Otters, stoats and pine martens are very close relations of the mink and are truly wild with no captive background. Normally they’re shy and wary but occasionally I have known all three of them show deep curiosity and a strange fearlessness when they’ve encountered people.

I was fishing on my own in a very small boat on a lake when a large dog otter surfaced a couple of metres from me and stared me in the face. It then dived and popped up on the other side of the boat for another look. This close range scrutiny went on for at least 20 minutes. I caught no fish that day.