How a hawk learned to use traffic signals to hunt more successfully

Summary

Adult Cooper’s hawk dispatching a house sparrow. Image: Vladimir Dinets. Dr Vladimir Dinets, a research assistant professor at the University of Tennessee, is a zoologist who studies animal behavior, ecology, and conservation. As of 2025, he also teaches mathematics at Rudgers University. He is the author of a recently published Frontiers in Ethology article that documents the impressive adaptation of an avian newcomer to the city. A Cooper’s hawk, a medium-sized raptor native to North America, appears to have learned how to adapt its hunting strategy and strike at a flock of birds precisely when cars at an intersection lined up after traffic lights switched to red, having been alerted by a sound signal that the red phase would last longer than usual. In the following guest editorial, he describes his observations. by Dr Vladimir DinetsMany years ago, I got to spend some time in Ngorongoro Crater, a unique place in Africa where immense herds of animals are being watched by equally immense crowds of 4x4-riding tourists, and traffic jams of all kinds are frequent. On my last evening there, a local guide told me at a campfire that some buffalo in the crater had figured out the meaning of car turn signals and used that understanding to get out of the way of turning Jeeps and Land Rovers.I never had a chance to return to the crater and still don’t know if that story was true, but it got me interested in animals’ perception of – and interactions with – human-made vehicles. Of course, the most common interaction is the animal becoming a roadkill, but it’s not the whole story. Many animals have learned to use cars for their own benefit, and birds seem to be particularly good at it. Crows drop walnuts, clams, even small vertebrates onto busy roads to have them killed and/or crushed by cars. Carrion-eating birds routinely monitor or patrol busy roads to immediately snatch roadkill. For example, many American highways are partitioned by families of ravens who watch them from d...