Big personality birds find the best homes

Science - Cath Harris | 15 Apr 11. Birds willing to move around and take risks are better at finding the best places to live, researchers have found. Those with 'fast-exploring' personalities - birds tending to be hyperactive - are far more likely to end up in areas providing enough food, shelter and reproductive opportunities, a new study shows. The research, led by scientists at Oxford University, has also found that smaller immigrant birds - those flying into, and staying, in a better habitat - are likely to have faster personalities than those born in the better habitat. 'If you're quite big, your personality probably doesn't matter because you're likely to be able to secure a territory anyway, or a mate with a territory,' said Dr John Quinn of Oxford University's Department of Zoology. 'But if you're quite small you have to have a big personality to join a new population.' Researchers from the Edward Grey Institute in the Department of Zoology have been studying great tits - a common garden and woodland bird - for more than 50 years and Wytham Woods near Oxford, an oak woodland that is comparatively rare near Oxford, is one of the best local habitats for the species. 'Great tits can probably see the woods from several kilometres away and we think the immigrants were born in towns or hedgerows where the habitat quality is not so good,' Dr Quinn says.