Urban environments cover vast areas with a high density of humans and their dogs and cats causing problems for exploitation of new resources by wild animals. Such resources facilitate colonization by individuals with a high level of neophilia predicting that urban animals should show more neophilia than rural conspecifics. We provided bird-feeders across urban environments in 14 Polish cities and matched nearby rural habitats, testing whether the presence of a novel item (a brightly coloured green object made out of gum with a tuft of hair) differentially delayed arrival at feeders in rural compared to urban habitats. The presence of a novel object reduced the number of great tits Parus major, but also the total number of all species of birds although differentially so in urban compared to rural areas. That was the case independent of the potentially confounding effects of temperature, population density of birds, and the abundance of cats, dogs and pedestrians. The number of great tits and the total number of birds attending feeders increased in urban compared to rural areas independent of local population density of birds. This implies that urban birds have high levels of neophilia allowing them to readily exploit unpredictable resources in urban environments.

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague Faculty of Environmental Sciences Department of Applied Geoinformatics and Spatial Planning Kamýcká 129 165 00 Prague 6 Czech Republic

Department of Avian Biology and Ecology Faculty of Biology Adam Mickiewicz University Umultowska 89 PL 61 614 Poznań Poland

Department of Ecology and Environmental Protection University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn Plac Łódzki 3 PL 10 727 Olsztyn Poland

Department of Environmental Protection and Management Bialystok University of Technology Wiejska 45a PL 15 351 Białystok Poland

Department of Forest Biodiversity University of Agriculture Al 29 Listopada 46 PL 31 425 Kraków Poland

Department of Vertebrate Zoology and Anthropology University of Szczecin Wąska 13 PL 71 412 Szczecin Poland

Department of Vertebrate Zoology Faculty of Biology and Environment Protection Nicolaus Copernicus University Lwowska 1 PL 87 100 Toruń Poland

Department of Zoology and Landscaping University of Technology and Life Sciences Ks A Kordeckiego 20 PL 85 225 Bydgoszcz Poland

Department of Zoology Pomeranian University Arciszewskiego 22b PL 76 200 Słupsk Poland

Department of Zoology Siedlce University of Natural Sciences and Humanities Prusa 12 PL 08 110 Siedlce Poland

Department of Zoology University of Rzeszów Zelwerowicza 4 PL 35 601 Rzeszów Poland

Ecologie Systématique Evolution Université Paris Sud CNRS AgroParisTech Université Paris Saclay F 91405 Orsay Cedex France

Faculty of Biological Sciences University of Zielona Góra Institute of Biotechnology and Environment Protection Prof Szafran St 1 PL 65 516 Zielona Góra Poland

High School of Civil Sciences Zamojska 47 PL 20 1012 Lublin Poland

Institute for Administration and Tourism State Higher Vocational School in Sulechów Armii Krajowej Str 51 PL 66 100 Sulechów Poland

Institute of Zoology Poznań University of Life Sciences Wojska Polskiego 71C PL 60 625 Poznań Poland

Upper Silesian Ornithological Society pl Jana 3 Sobieskiego 2 PL 41 902 Bytom Poland

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