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How Homing Pigeons Navigate

Posted by timothy on from the as-the-bird-flies-is-tautological dept.

goombah99 writes "Over the years there has been much research and speculation on how homing pigeons navigate. The assumption has been they need some novel sensory mechanism to give them north-south orientation information. Theories included magnetic field sensitivty and polarized light sensitivity, other possibilies include analysing the motion of the sun. But British researchers appear to have cracked the case: they follow roads and landmarks and don't require special senses. Birds, it seems, actually follow the longer as-the-dog-walks path of the road, even circling over round-abouts rather than the straight 'as-the-bird-flies' path one would expect if they used absolute position sensing."

51 comments

  1. Obligatory... by Captain+Goatse · · Score: 1, Funny

    Time for another update to RFC1149 ;)?

    --
    The classic essay on "worse is better" is either misunderstood
    1. Re:Obligatory... by fredrikj · · Score: 5, Funny

      Or now we know why Google's search results are so good.

  2. Ok by El · · Score: 0, Redundant

    So, how do they navigate over water? This report would indicate that pidgeons are incapable of crossing, say, the English Channel. This could be tested easily by taking a pidgeon to France and seeing if it can find it's way home...

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    1. Re:Ok by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe this way: "Guilford said pigeons use their own navigational system when doing long-distance trips or when a bird does a journey for the first time."

    2. Re:Ok by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      If I'm reading that article correctly, pidgeons *can* navigate by the sun, stars, etc., but they prefer to navigate by landmarks. Look at the part discussing what the birds did the first time they traveled a given route, before they knew the landmarks.

    3. Re:Ok by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      it looks like it's just about carrier pigeons(you know the kind of that would bring you a parcel with your stas.. err message.) doing some (semi)local navigationing rather than how birds in general navigate.

      and anyways the submitter/poster could have read the article too with thought..

      Guilford said pigeons use their own navigational system when doing long-distance trips or when a bird does a journey for the first time.

      But when they have flown a journey more than once they home in on a habitual route home.

      "In short it looks like it is mentally easier for a bird to fly down a road... they are just making their journey as simple as possible." - the bird in this is referring to pigeons too, can't imagine albatrosses using streets for navigationing when they're flying thousands of kilometers away from land either..

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    4. Re:Ok by dnahelix · · Score: 1

      *sigh* You didn't read the article. How sad.

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    5. Re:Ok by NanoGator · · Score: 1

      "This could be tested easily by taking a pidgeon to France and seeing if it can find it's way home..."

      I really wish people would stop presenting me with such juicy opportunities to make non-PC jokes.

      --
      "Derp de derp."
    6. Re:Ok by El · · Score: 1

      I was going to add "... before it finds itself on a dining table" to the above but decide that wasn't politically correct...

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      "Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney

    7. Re:Ok by Tomah4wk · · Score: 1

      Why not?

      People in most countries ive ever been to eat pigeon in one form or another (its not very common though). I used to shoot them for a farmer, and would at least eat some of them (wood pigeon) and you can always get them from most good butchers (in season obviously).

  3. Pidgeon? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You mean Walder Pidgeon? I'm sorry, I always got him confused with Arthur Treacher. I know one of them had fish and chips. Both were actors.

  4. Makes sense by crow · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Birds obviously have great memories. Parrots and certain other species can memorize sounds perfectly (and play them back). It's no wonder that they can memorize landmarks with similar perfection.

    Now this doesn't eliminate the idea that they can sense magnetic lines, giving them an ability to memorize things that we don't see, especially for flights over water.

    1. Re:Makes sense by Kitty+Cat+JP · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Fuck that! I beilive we're not smart enugh to decide. Our (humans) Scientists cant tell 0.1% of the worlds secrets. All is still and will be a mistory.

    2. Re:Makes sense by cxvx · · Score: 1
      Fuck that! I beilive we're not smart enugh to decide. Our (humans) Scientists cant tell 0.1% of the worlds secrets. All is still and will be a mistory.

      Let's hope that one day, scientists will be able to uncover the great mystery of bad spelling on slashdot :)

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    3. Re:Makes sense by Ape_the_Dog · · Score: 1

      Actually, they probably use both. They'll use landmarks when they can, and use their magnetic compass for longer distances. Nobody knows exactly how this compass works yet, but there's no question as to whether or not it exists, as pigeons which are released with a small magnet attached to their heads can't find their way back. That does not prove they have some sort of magnetic compass inside their brain. Maybe they're robots... or their brain works in the same way as a hard disk. But it is a good indicator.

  5. RFC 1149 by Garridan · · Score: 5, Funny

    So THAT explains why my connection always gets so laggy when there's construction on the roads!

    http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1149.html

    1. Re:RFC 1149 by addaon · · Score: 1

      We can just train 'em to follow power lines...

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      I've had this sig for three days.
    2. Re:RFC 1149 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Get it? A transport protocol that uses pigeons! Hilarious!

      LOLOLOL!!!

    3. Re:RFC 1149 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I, apparently, am the only person who finds RFC 1149 incredibly UNfunny.

  6. aljazeera? better article in Sunday Times IMHO by real_smiff · · Score: 4, Informative

    Pigeons shun the sun to take the high road home

    By Mark Henderson

    Famous for their uncanny ability to navigate by the Sun, homing pigeons may in fact be taking a lazier option: following the motorways and A-roads conveniently mapped out by human beings. Using satellite tracking devices, scientists found that the birds, like motorists, prefer major roads to more direct routes home. on Saturdays you can see flocks over the M5 . . .

    THE secret of the carrier pigeon's uncanny ability to find its home coop has been revealed by British scientists: they do it by following roads.

    When the birds are released miles from home they navigate back in remarkably similar fashion to their human owners, choosing the trunk routes recommended in road atlases, a major satellite tracking study has shown.

    Homing pigeons will often cruise down a motorway before turning on to city ring roads and exiting at major junctions, even when such a path adds miles to the journey.

    Hardly ever do pigeons travel as "the crow flies", preferring instead to take the lazy mental option, even when it involves much greater physical exertion. Just like drivers, they select straight main roads rather than twisting country lanes, choosing economy of thought over fuel efficiency.

    The findings, from a team at Oxford University, indicate that homing pigeons do not always navigate by taking bearings on the Sun, as has often been assumed, but rather seek out short cuts that make journeys less taxing.

    "It really has knocked our research team sideways to find that pigeons appear to ignore their inbuilt directional instinct and follow the road system," said Tim Guilford, Professor of Zoology, who led the study. "The routes they take are not the most efficient in terms of physical effort, but they are very efficient in terms of mental effort. They settle on a route that's fairly energy-efficient, but it's never the most efficient. Following the road network seems to make the journey that much more relaxing."

    In the study, Professor Guilford and his colleague Dora Biro attached miniature global positioning satellite tracking devices, each weighing just 18 grams, to homing pigeons. These were then released up to 20 miles away from their home coops in Oxfordshire.

    While the birds initially used the Sun to get their bearings, they rapidly learnt the layout of the road network and used it as a guide to getting home.

    Different pigeons developed different favourite routes, but all of them tended to follow linear features on the landscape wherever possible -- roads, railway lines, hedgerows and rivers.

    "By matching their routes to detailed maps it is striking to see the pigeons fly straight down the A34 Oxford bypass, and then sharply curve off at the traffic lights before curving off again at the roundabout," Professor Guilford said.

    "It was almost comical watching one group of birds that we released near a major A-road. They followed the road to the first junction, where they all turned right and, a couple of junctions on, they all turned left.

    "They must be tracking linear features because it's an easy way to keep going in the correct direction. It is like the driver on the motorway, who can relax a bit on the long, straight stretches, then thinks hard at the difficult junction."

    The study, which is being prepared for publication, will be featured in the BBC One series Animal Camera, which starts next Thursday.

    Homing pigeons normally navigate by an innate solar compass, which allows them to check their bearings by watching the Sun. They also rely on landmarks for familiar routes, however, and the new findings suggest that this is their preferred method.

    "This research is exciting because the traditional view of bird navigation is that they use a Sun-based compass at all times," Professor Guilford said. "But we have found that if we drive a pigeon in a van and then release it, the bird will still use

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    1. Re:aljazeera? better article in Sunday Times IMHO by Eccles · · Score: 1

      Couldn't roads also provide a nice thermal uplift? All those hot car engines probably produce enough heat to make a pigeon's journey nicer.

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      Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
    2. Re:aljazeera? better article in Sunday Times IMHO by moorhens · · Score: 1
      In some ways there is little new in this research, except that they have used technology to corroborate observations that generations of birders have made. There have even been notes published in British Birds magazine about terns and other long-distance migrants using rivers, canals and roads as routemarkers, just as a pilot may.

      The truth of the matter is that birds use whatever calculation is most appropriate at the time - so the same terns that use roads on route north will have had to migrate over the sea, where the position of the sun and even smell and infrasound cues would be more important.

      Pigeons are notorious for being able to navigate homeward from overseas and from distances where they can't possibly have experienced landmarks to learn. What is certainly true is that pigeons have a remarkable ability to memorise their home area, but perhaps they don't like the hard work of calculating their position relative to the sun any more than most people enjoy mapreading - why take a compass bearing if you can see your way home?

  7. Thats not what the article says. by Captain+Rotundo · · Score: 5, Informative

    The (very short) article says that the birds will home in the firsttime a flight is done using thier own "navigational system". It does say after many flights they settle in on a routine path, that tends to follow roads. As if (big surprise!) its easier to follow the landmarks that to use that "navigational system".

    Once again the slashdot blurb completely misrepresents the article. Good work guys :)

    1. Re:Thats not what the article says. by SpaceLifeForm · · Score: 2, Funny

      Not to mention that since pigeons are smart, and they know they were wired for the study, why would they give away their navigation secrets for free? Much easier to fool the humans by appearing to follow landmarks such as roads since the pigeons know that humans can relate to that!

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    2. Re:Thats not what the article says. by MissMarvel · · Score: 1

      I was also disappointed this article wasn't about the actual navigation system in pigeons. Still, ya gotta give it to the pigeon... clever bird.

      Too bad this article didn't discuss what a pigeon does in the dark. It would be interesting to know if their "navigation" system kicks in when there isn't a road to follow or if they just sack out until dawn when the seeing is better.

  8. pigeons vs. pidgeons by real_smiff · · Score: 1
    pidgeon facts
    doh! before anyone else spots my stunning error: the first fact is there's no "d" in pigeon..
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  9. Anyone seriously interested... by Ieshan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I work in a lab examining Avian Visual Psychology -

    there's a great online text edited by the Professor I work for completely free with sample videos and works by many of the great researchers in this field:

    http://www.pigeon.psy.tufts.edu

  10. RFC 1149 by El · · Score: 3, Funny

    So, in essence what they are saying is that we can minimize RTT (Round Trip Time) delays when using RFC 1149 "A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers" by painting huge lines on the ground directly between source and destination? I'm sure network implementers will cooing with joy at this revelation!

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    "Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney

  11. Since I'm NOT RTFA about pigeons.... by narftrek · · Score: 4, Funny

    I must rant in traditional /. fashion. Here goes:

    I AM APALLED by the fact that one would even suggest such as stupid theory. Listen up guys: Enough of this silly "they follow the roads stuff" Some of us are actually trying to make money off this "imaginary" magnetic-ion-built-in-GPS navigation system that pigeons DO in fact have. If you keep putting out simple explanations to things like this, you're gonna run the rest of us lunatic scientists out of business. We NEED those government grants!
    </rant>

    Now back to finishing my 5 assed pigeon....

    1. Re:Since I'm NOT RTFA about pigeons.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now back to finishing my 5 assed pigeon....

      Five-assed pigeon? I'd think you'd need to manage a half-assed pigeon first!

  12. Rivers.. by molo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I believe this may be a way for the pigeons to adapt their inate skills to the modern world. I believe in pre-civilization times the birds would have followed rivers and waterways like they are following the roads today.

    It would be interesting to do a study in an area without roads and population to see if this is indeed the case.

    -molo

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    1. Re:Rivers.. by stoolpigeon · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I was thinking the same thing. Of course the trick to testing it out would be to find and area without roads and population.

      Not a lot of those left in general- let alone where pigeons live.

      --
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  13. I-95 South Congested (reported by Bernie) by merdaccia · · Score: 2, Interesting

    where Bernie is the affectionate name given to pigeon 37.

    Think about it. A local news agency opens up a dozen or so little offices distributed around your city. It then trains pigeons to go to and from a couple of the offices, and attaches a small video camera with a decent transmitter to Bernie's leg. Since the pigeons follow roads, you'll have a live feed (no pun intended) of the road every pigeon is flying over.

    Better yet, it seems likely that a greater number of pigeons will follow major roads, and fewer follow minor roads. That's more coverage of the main arteries, exactly what we need. And if you attach a GPS unit, you can localize which PigeonFeed (TM) you want to look at.

    Sure beats millions of dollars for helicopters and thousands more for fuel ... not to mention that we could maybe train them to poop on slow drivers. :)

    --

    *blinking cursor*

    1. Re:I-95 South Congested (reported by Bernie) by Bagels · · Score: 1

      The trouble would be keeping the camera pointed down and steady, I imagine - the pigeon beating its wings would make the image bounce a lot. Maybe if you could get the camera to trail behind this effect would be minimized.

      --
      --- Bwah?
  14. did this YEARS ago... by moosesocks · · Score: 0, Redundant

    The British have become pros at determining the migratory patterns of small, insignificant birds. Why, back in the 12th century, England's own king was doing similar research on swallows...

    SOLDIER #1: Where'd you get the coconuts?

    ARTHUR: We found them.

    SOLDIER #1: Found them? In Mercia? The coconut's tropical!

    ARTHUR: What do you mean?

    SOLDIER #1: Well, this is a temperate zone.

    ARTHUR: The swallow may fly south with the sun or the house martin or the plover may seek warmer climes in winter, yet these are not strangers to our land?

    SOLDIER #1: Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?

    ARTHUR: Not at all. They could be carried.

    SOLDIER #1: What? A swallow carrying a coconut?

    ARTHUR: It could grip it by the husk!

    SOLDIER #1: It's not a question of where he grips it! It's a simple question of weight ratios! A five ounce bird could not carry a one pound coconut.

    ARTHUR: Well, it doesn't matter. Will you go and tell your master that Arthur from the Court of Camelot is here?

    SOLDIER #1: Listen. In order to maintain air-speed velocity, a swallow needs to beat its wings forty-three times every second, right?

    ARTHUR: Please!

    SOLDIER #1: Am I right?

    ARTHUR: I'm not interested!

    SOLDIER #2: It could be carried by an African swallow!

    SOLDIER #1: Oh, yeah, an African swallow maybe, but not a European swallow. That's my point.

    SOLDIER #2: Oh, yeah, I agree with that.

    ARTHUR: Will you ask your master if he wants to join my court at Camelot?!

    SOLDIER #1: But then of course a-- African swallows are non-migratory.

    SOLDIER #2: Oh, yeah.

    SOLDIER #1: So, they couldn't bring a coconut back anyway.

    [clop clop clop]

    SOLDIER #2: Wait a minute! Supposing two swallows carried it together?

    SOLDIER #1: No, they'd have to have it on a line.

    SOLDIER #2: Well, simple! They'd just use a strand of creeper!

    SOLDIER #1: What, held under the dorsal guiding feathers?

    SOLDIER #2: Well, why not?

    --
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  15. Re:Pigeon router by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny
    Rebecca Rees, an AA spokesman, said: "The AA devises 30 million routes for motorists every year, but we didn't realise thousands of pigeons were among our customers."


    Perhaps they could use use the pigeons *to* determine best routes for motorists?
  16. Re:Pigeon router by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > Perhaps they could use use the pigeons *to* determine best routes for motorists?

    Straight over mountains, straight across lakes, straight over canyons! Brilliant!

  17. If they tend to follow roads... by sheapshearer · · Score: 1, Funny

    Then they must also hate Los Angeles...

    Let's just hope they don't use airport runways for guidance!

  18. Re:Aljazeera? by jc42 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why, no, not at all. If you look closely at /. stories in the past few months, you'll find others from Al Jazeera. Also, if you go to new.google.com, you'll find them well represented in the top stories. In particular, they've had good summaries of a lot of technical and scientific stories.

    You'd think that the Al Jazeera folks are trying to be a respected news source or something.

    (I was trying hard not to say "fair and balanced. ;-)

    Their Middle-East reporting makes for interesting reading, too. They often give you a somewhat different slant than Western news services.

    --
    Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
  19. Ya know.... by trainsnpep · · Score: 2, Interesting
    They're pretty smart for a dumb bird....Who'd a thunk?

    However, this brings up a question: Prior to industrialization, how did they navigate? What about prior to human habitation of areas? Or did they only begin to become homing pigeons when they had definite paths to follow?

    Of course, this totally screws up the Airspeed-Velocity of an Unladen Swallow because velocity is a vector, and vectors require a direction....And we thought we had that figured out! Damn!

    --
    --<Mike>--
  20. BBC by $exyNerdie · · Score: 4, Informative


    I read this article on BBC a last week. If you would like to, you can read it here.

    CNN also carried a story on this.

    Some more news sites that carried this news are
    How do homing pigeons navigate ?

    Pigeons navigate 'by following roads'

    Pigeons take the highway

    The homing pigeon's ploy: follow that road

    Pigeons home in on the roads

    I was a little surprised that out of all the news sites, someone picked it up on Al jazeera... Not that I have anything against any news channel....

  21. Thermals? by thogard · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Maybe flying along a motorway takes less energy because of the rising air.

  22. hmmm by n.o.d.y.n.e · · Score: 1

    I bet the bird were glad the Romans came along.

    --
    Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. - Henry Ford
  23. Other potentially contributing factors (: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Other potentially contributing factors (:

    Roads are warmer in winter.

    It's safer: the local falcons have learned it's useless to knock down prey that will just become road pancakes.

    They are bred pet pigeons who have evolved/bred to follow roads because it gives their chasing owners a satisfying spectator experience and the safest route home to provide the next meal.

    1. Re:Other potentially contributing factors (: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I like the meal idea. Its more subtle than it sounds. If a "wild" bird gets a tad lost it's not like its going to miss out on a meal, since there ain't one waiting. It can try to stop an forage anywhere. if a homing pigeon gets lost it delays its main source of food. Thus following the roads might add a small amount of time on average over direct navigation but decrease the chance of catostophic losses of time due to occasionally getting lost.
      The hawk idea makes sense too. In addition to hawks not bothering to knock down pigeons over asphault, there are probably fewer hawks to start with (e.g. no field mice or other prey either to attract them in the first place.)

  24. one way trip only by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    what i dont understand is the part
    where the homing pigeon gets born
    in london and gets transported in
    a cage to paris and will fly home
    to london if released ...

    when they're transported in the cage
    do they have to be able to see where
    they're transported to or else they
    won't find home?

    maybe they can navigate by looking
    at wave pattern ...

    this is prolly just bullsh.t.
    it's been proven that they have
    small magnets in their brains and
    can "see" the magnetic field lines
    with it. also the earth magnetic
    field isn't the same everywhere just
    like gravity isn't the same everywhere.
    you can (could) jump further at the
    equater, etc.

    "pigeons are a one way packet"

  25. Maybe its longer by supertsaar · · Score: 1

    But what about the chance of finding food along the way? Maybe the pigeons have also learned that there's lots of thrown-away sandwiches & packets of crisps along motorways.....those flying rats...

    --
    The Bigger The Headache The Bigger the Pill
  26. Memory by Enti · · Score: 1

    I find it amazing that pigeons (some other animals included) are able to so perfectly memorize a route after only one pass-over. To be honest, I tend to get lost after just a few streets into my downtown area. Would this suggest a highly specialized memory or mindset? A parallel might be drawn between this and times when humans are highly aroused (extreme situations involving internal stimulants) where memories tend to be much more vivid. Has anyone run into any information on this?

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  27. fdsfdsf by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    fdsfdsfs