No, the human smell is not enough to dissuade birds from having contact with their offspring: it’s an urban legend.
Birds do not recognize their peers by smell and the human odor is not sufficient to dissuade them from having contact with their offspring. According to several studies, most birds don’t even have a very developed sense of smell and, in general, many animals don’t care about human smell.
I’m moving house. Birds usually do not abandon the nest and their offspring, not even in the event of threats from predators, from which they try to defend themselves as much as possible because instinct leads them to “evaluate” that procreation and care of the young require large energy resources that should not be wasted by abandonment.
If the threats become unmanageable, they rebuild their nest elsewhere, also transferring their offspring there.
Parents are better. The Lipu (Italian Bird Protection League) recommends not picking up chicks that have escaped from nests if they are not injured or in obvious poor health and if they are not free of feathers. In fact, only in rare cases are they abandoned: they are often healthy nestlings who have left the nest before being ready to fly and who are still looked after and fed by their parents.
Barbara Merlo
