Why Do Birds Bob Their Heads? (5 Key Reasons)

Birds fascinate us with their natural beauty, extraordinary abilities, and often downright strange behavior. Case in point, many bird species have a habit of shaking their heads when walking, perching, or observing the world around them. This strange and interesting behavior has some surprising capabilities.

Most birds have amazing eyesight, partly due to their relatively large eyes. However, having such huge eyes comes at a price.

Birds can’t move their eyes like we can, so they need to move their heads to compensate. These head movements are most noticeable when the bird is in motion, when the bird needs to stabilize its vision so that its surroundings do not blur.

Most of the head bobbing movements we see in birds are related to vision, but birds also use head movements in other everyday activities. Read on to learn more about why birds shake their heads, some of the answers may not be what you expected!

Closeup of a sandhill crane head

reason birds shake their heads

Birds often move their heads in exaggerated and unusual ways. If you’ve ever watched a pigeon run through a park, you’ve probably noticed the funny way these birds shake their heads back and forth.

This funny gait happens almost automatically and out of control in pigeons, but other birds also shake their heads for various reasons.

The main reason birds shake their heads is to maintain a clear view. This is important for many reasons, including avoiding predators, finding food, and interacting with other members of their kind. Many birds also use their heads to make exaggerated movements to communicate with other birds.

Read on to learn about some of the main functions of bird head bobbing.

Pigeons have one of the most pronounced head bobbing

visual stabilization

Birds have very limited ability to move their eyes, so they rely on head movements to stabilize their vision. Many ground birds and other species that walk rather than jump exhibit this behavior, bobbing their heads back and forth as they walk.

Birds perched on unstable objects appear to keep their heads still relative to the ground. In effect, the bird is moving its head to correct the uncontrollable movement of its body. There are similar movements in flight, and birds such as hummingbirds and eagles circling in one place are masters of this visual stabilization technology.

prey detection

Birds of prey such as hawks, hawks, and owls often duck their heads to spot prey. Researchers studied three different species of American hawks and found that each has a different head movement that best suits their hunting technique and the habitat in which they hunt.

For example, cooper’s hawks that hunted in really dense and cluttered habitats moved their heads more frequently than red-tailed hawks that hunted in more open habitats.

Cooper’s Hawks have to move their heads more because of the habitat they hunt in

courtship

For some birds, head shaking has nothing to do with vision and everything to do with mating. Mallards are a good example of a bird that uses head bobbing during courtship. Both male and female mallards bob their heads up and down, usually before mating.

territory display

Northern flickers also use head bobbing to communicate. In their case, however, the behavior was usually competitive in nature rather than romantic. Both sexes may shake their heads, but this behavior is often seen in males who are bickering for the female’s attention.

swallow food

With the exception of sharp-beaked raptors, most birds need to swallow their food whole, especially if the food is too hard to peck into small pieces. Birds of prey such as herons, cormorants, gulls and owls often need to shake their heads vigorously to swallow their feast.

Great Blue Heron swallows a fish

What does it mean when a bird shakes its head?

Birds often shake their heads when they look at people, as if trying to intimidate us or try to convey some unspoken message.

The birds shook their heads at us just to see us. They do this to determine if we are a threat, maybe even out of curiosity. By shaking their heads, birds are able to get pictures of their surroundings from slightly different angles and distances, helping them better understand what they’re looking at.

Which birds shake their heads?

Pigeons and doves (Columbiae) are probably best known for “head bobbing,” but many birds perform these amusing maneuvers as well. You’re unlikely to see a jumping bird like a sparrow bobbing its head, but the following birds can all be seen bobbing their heads while walking:

• quail
• turkey
• chicken
• heron
• crane
• starling
• crow
• Pigeon

starling walking along the ground

Why do birds shake their heads when they walk?

Many theories have been proposed to explain why birds shake their heads when they walk. Experiments with tinamous and pigeons running on a treadmill have shown that instead of automatic muscular movements that occur while running, the movement of the head is not synchronized with the movement of the birds’ legs.

You might also be surprised to learn that birds only shake their heads forward when walking, and the backward movement is an optical illusion!

Birds are thought to shake their heads to stabilize their vision while walking. This is important for detecting predators, judging distance, and analyzing the world around you. These movements can be broken down into two phases, a “hold” phase in which the bird keeps its head still relative to the ground, and a “thrust” phase in which the bird moves its head forward rapidly to catch up with the body.

During the hold phase, the bird’s eyes remain still long enough to form a clear image of their surroundings without blurring, which is very helpful in detecting any movement that might pose a threat.

The rapid forward movement of the head during the thrust phase allows the head to catch up and move in front of the bird’s body for the next grasp. The thrust phase is also thought to play an important role in improving depth perception in birds.

Close-up of the Elegant Crested Tinamou (Eudromia elegans)

Do birds shake their heads to the music?

There is another very interesting reason why some birds shake their heads. Many people who own birds like parrots, cockatoos and budgerigars will attest that these popular pets love to shake their heads.

A common explanation for this behavior is attention-grabbing, but research has shown that some birds in this family are actually rhythmic.

Harvard University researchers have discovered that specimens of at least two species of birds move to the beat of music. These two species are none other than the intelligent and long-lived African gray parrot and the sulfur cockatoo.

Both species have a remarkable ability to mimic sounds, which is believed to be important to their ability to “dance”. However, movement synchronized with sound has not been found in any wild birds.

African gray parrot perched on a branch