Inquisitory Birds: Thinking through the Ethics and Assumptions of Playback Responses in Birds

Abstract

A technique employed by both scientists and birders is the use of song playback to elicit a response from a bird. For birders, the intention is to encourage a hidden bird to reveal itself to the observer. On hearing the recording, the bird reacts with either an aggressive territorial response or inquisitory social approach. While the effects of playback on birds are incompletely understood, repeated exposure appears to influence a bird’s subsequent behaviour. Where playback has been widely used, birds sometimes no longer respond to the sounds of their own species, ignore the sound, and thus deviate from their assumed natural behaviour. These effects have raised ethical questions about the use of playback in birding and in some places the practice is banned. This article examines the use of playback in birding and the wider questions this raises. Ethical debates around playback reveal ideas about what birds are, how they can potentially interact with humans, and how the aesthetics of birding are practiced and debated.