European urban birds flee approaching women sooner than approaching men
Well this is odd.
Our study revealed that, after accounting for other variables influencing significant variation in FID [Flight Initiation Distance], birds on average tended to escape from a distance of about 1 m longer when approached by women compared to men. Birds were less tolerant of women than of men, and this result was geographically consistent. These differences were still present when exploring FID versus observer's sex separately for bird males and females in the cities of each country. On average, birds escaped 1 m (11% of their mean escape distance) earlier when approached by women than by men.
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