Another example other than birds are squirrels, for example. To clarify what I mean: If you make a noise around them, these animals will suddenly, and very quickly, turn their head towards you. Then, after a couple of seconds, they will turn it away again, in the same sudden, unsmooth way. How come they can’t make smooth movements, and instead just move like a robot?
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They’re kinda defenseless animals if you think about it so their ability to move out of flight is their defensive strength, that’s how i’d look at it
Eyes can not see when they are moving. You are actually blind when you move your eyes to look at something else. To reduce the time you are blind your eyes move suddenly and then stop, just like a robot. You do not notice this much as you tend to not observe the movement of the eyes very much, and even when you do then you do not consider this abnormal. But birds can not move their eyeball in their head. To look at something they need to move their entire head. So whenever they look at something they have to move their entire head quickly and then stop to look at it. That gives them a very robotic moving look.
For squirrels I am not quite sure but I think it have to do with avoiding predators. Animals are much better at spotting movements rather then shapes and colors. So to avoid getting spotted it is important to move as little as possible. When you have to move you therefore have to move a lot while you still can. This is what squirrels have adapted to doing.
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Some prey animals will “freeze” when disturbed. It’s believed that they’re instinctively trying to “hide” by blending in with their surroundings.
Rabbits do this, so do deer.
(It works better for rabbits when they’re on brown leaf litter in a forest and not in the middle of a green suburban lawn… but hey, nobody ever said they were smart. Good thing they reproduce quickly.)
Maybe that’s part of what you’re describing?
I remember learning about this in school, its basically because they cant move their eyeballs like how we can. So any movement of their vision they need to jerk their whole head.
There are two things happening here.
One the one hand, they *are* moving smoothly, just very, very fast. Humans perceive motion quite slowly compared to, say, a hummingbird. What looks jerky to you is butter-smooth to a sparrow. Birds just operate at a higher level.
On the other hand, the whole move-and-stop thing makes sense when you think about how predators spot prey, which has a lot to do with motion. Most prey animals are camouflaged and blend in nearly perfectly with their surroundings. You only see them when they move and break the illusion. Fast movements decrease the amount of time they’re “exposed” by limiting the chances that a predator will notice them. You see this kind of thing with rabbits, groundhogs, squirrels, etc.
Because they need to hold very still to 1. Not be visible and 2. Hear and see clearly.
Lots of animals can’t move their eyes or ears so they need to turn their head, then hold still to take note of their surroundings, listen and look for predators or prey. Also holding still let’s their camouflage protect them, so they move quickly then freeze again.
1. Continuous movement is more likely to attract the attention of predators/prey. Sufficiently camouflaged non-moving objects are very difficult to see compared to moving ones, so these animals try to reduce the amount of time they spend in motion when possible.
2. To see clearly, natural eyes need a relatively static image for a short period of time (i.e. the object you’re trying to see needs to stay in one specific area in your vision). Most animals can rotate their eyes to counter the movement of the rest of their body and keep the object in focus, however smaller animals (especially birds) often lack that ability and must therefore keep their body (or at least their head) still in order for them to see. This effect is [very visible with chickens](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dPlkFPowCc).
Animals’ reaction times are WAYYYYYYY faster than humans as they are constantly in danger of becoming prey. This, combined with their smaller, more survival driven brains, makes them perceive nearly everything as a threat. This makes them move in quick jerky motions and stop dead in their tracks sometimes. If you watch them though you will see them move smoothly when they percieve no threats.
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