How Homing Pigeons Navigate

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."

Comments

Re:Ok

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

aljazeera? better article in Sunday Times IMHO

[real_smiff]

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

Thats not what the article says.

[Captain Rotundo]

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 :)

BBC

[$exyNerdie]

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....