Flying Apparently Makes Birds Happy

For roughly as long as humans have been watching birds, we have looked upward and assumed that flying must feel extraordinary. Researchers at Utrecht University recently devised a way to check. Apparently, we were not wrong.

A new study shows that galahs, Australian cockatoos, almost always chose to fly when given the opportunity, and after several days of flying, the birds made more optimistic choices. That second part is the finding worth pausing over.

The researchers worked with 17 galahs who voluntarily participated in flight demonstrations, comparing measurements from days when they flew against days when they did not. They used three approaches: behavioral observation, a cognitive bias test designed to measure optimism or pessimism and hormone analysis via droppings. Two of those three landed.

After flying, the galahs foraged more actively for scattered seed, even with full bellies. Lead researcher Jorg Massen described the foraging pattern as a natural behavior animals display when they feel at ease. The pessimism finding was, if anything, more striking: the longer the birds went without flying, the more pessimistic they became. Fecal corticosterone metabolites showed no clear pattern, likely because the physical exertion of flying raises the same hormones that stress does, making that measure hard to read.

Massen is careful to distinguish between demonstrating an emotional state and proving that a bird consciously experiences anything. He also notes this is one species, and that birds of prey, which must conserve energy, may fly primarily out of necessity. The practical implication is blunt: captive birds need space to actually fly.

The scientists built a test to measure bird feelings. The birds, given the option, kept volunteering for the thing that made them optimistic. Science occasionally produces a result shaped almost exactly like common sense.

Read the full story at Phys.org, July 14, 2026

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