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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."

3 of 51 comments (clear)

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

    --
    It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
  3. 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"