A very interesting article.

Ronnie · July 22, 2008

Just got an email from winning magazine(online mag) linking to this article its very interesting and may explain what happened to me this weekend from Lessay.

http://www.winningmagazine.nl:80/articels/redactie.asp?Id=5757

Hope it helps

Roland · July 22, 2008

Yep got the same one... always entertaining and interesting reading.

I believe, personally, all Race Controllers and Liberators should read Steves viewson these... have them all still no doubt.

Tony C · July 22, 2008

Nice theory ........ but does it hold water

July 22, 2008

Don't know?? In the valley north of junction 27 M5, there was inversion yesterday morning at 6.30, my loft is located nearby. From my loft I could lookover the inversion and visibility was excellent. I took my young birds to Taunton liberated them and had 33 out of 34. When I lived in Huddersfield for a period I lived at Sowood overlooking Huddersfield and on a clear day I could see a further 30 miles east. The inversion was spectacular at times looking over the top on a clear sunny day. I would never have liberated my birds to get home to Huddersfield even from 5 mile when it was covered with inversion but i would never hesitate if they were going to fly over the inversion to get home. It maybe with the topography inversion sits differently on the continent but my experience in this country is that it tends to sit in valley bottoms or plains surrounded by hills.

July 22, 2008

I have more than a little difficulty visualising what Steven Van Breemen means.

I thought inversion was a 'ceiling' formed by air of different temperature to the belts of air below and / or above it. The only time I've noticed it, and I certainly didn't know what was causing it at the time, was a low layer of darker cloud scudding Eastwards and at the same time tho much higher, a higher layer of white cloud moving Westward. So had a low level strong West wind that I could feel, but much a higher, a lighter East wind that I could see the effects of, but couldn't feel.

I don't think UV Light is a factor in the Sun-Compass theory either.

Whats it called Cumbernauld · July 22, 2008

The ability of a pigeon to home, and how it is able to do this is far from conclusive.

Great unanswered question yeah.

If we do not know how they return,how we suposed to know what may stop them.

Shoots in the dark spring to mind.

The weather,and the pigeons health, are but two concrete contrabutions to success,therfore it could be argued, they are also eliments that would contribute to failure

It is impotent that we keep an open mind,the answers out there.However we will have to have conclusive proof of how they can home,in order to begine to examine the reasons behind there sometimes in ability to home

Yeah?

July 22, 2008

there was a tv programme on sky not to long ago about this they reckoned there was 3 main contributing things that affect homing ability 1 ]the earths magnetic field

2] was that they use the position of the sun at any given time to locate there loft

3] which surprised me more than anything was they use there sense of smell

they experimented by suppressing each of these factors individually and all of them affected the homing ability bloody interesting programme....pete

July 23, 2008

Yes remember seeing the same TV programme. Funny thing. When strangers meet you and the birds for the first time, its the same question that they all ask: 'how do they find their way home'?

I think most of us know the theories; one not mentioned here is the birds incredible memory and its location map: seems they have ability to memorise 1000s of 'landmarks'. How the bird brings all these abilities together to get itself home is (for me) one of the great unsolved mysteries. Hope it stays that way.

Roland · July 23, 2008

Swallows etc. apparently photo the sky every night, then remembered likeso they know exactly where they are at all times... Indeed remove them of line a little and they just get lost. Incidently it would take a 12 story building to do the same...! :-/