magnetic field

[birdbrain]

what makes a bird fly home??? i have heard that it is something todo with "magnetic field." is this true??? :-/  :-/

[MsPigeon]

I have heard that too, but how could they know for sure. I also heard that the earth is gradually changing polarity and that it could have something to do with losses. Anyone else heard this or know about it?

Carol

[PIGEON_MAN]

BIRDBRAIN,I WOULD THINK IT WAS OBVIOUS WHAT MAKES A BIRD FLY HOME,FLAPPING ITS WINGS. NO BUT SERIOUSLY THERE AS BEEN MANY THEORYS OVER THE YEARS AS TO HOW A BIRD GETS HOME BUT I GUESS THEY WILL NEVER BE CERTAIN AS THERE SEEMS TO BE SO MANY DIFFERANT ANSWERS.SOMETIMES I WONDER WHETHER WE COME UP WITH ALL THESE IDEAS ABOUT MAGNETIC FIELDS, MOBILE PHONE MASTS, ETC,ETC, JUST AS A EXCUSE WHEN REALLY WE SHOULD BE ONLY BREEDING OFF BIRDS THAT SHOULD BE BRED OFF AND NOT BECAUSE ITS GOT A PEDIGREE AS LONG AS YOUR ARM OR ITS A SON OR DAUGHTER OF SOME PAST GOOD RACER.

[Guest]

dont they just amaze you with their homing ability, as previous post staes no one knows for sure how they get home or why they go missing!!!

[mealybar]

I have heard that too, but how could they know for sure. I also heard that the earth is gradually changing polarity and that it could have something to do with losses. Anyone else heard this or know about it?

Carol

 

Yes the magnetic polls are always moving. At the moment the north pole and magnetic north are quite a bit off (cant remember how many miles). I think this is how carbon dating works, as they know where the pole was certain years, and whatever in the object will line up with these on the correct year. I watched a programme some time ago which was all about when the poles will be swapping! What will the birds do then!! :-/

 

Just found this: "Located hundred of miles south of the geographic North Pole lies the magnetic North Pole at approximately 82.7° North and 114.4° West (2005), northwest of Canada's Sverdrup Island. However, this location is not fixed and is moving continually, even on a daily basis."

 

It goes on to say that magnetic north is moving about 25 miles per year!

[MsPigeon]

Wow! 25 miles per year! Thanks for the interesting info mealybar.

Carol

[jimmy white]

earlier this year ,the girl across the road handed in, babie street pigeon which had been injured, i kept this in a box till it had recovered, then at her request put in my small loft and aviary ,they could only see 3 ydsout the aviary facing my house, she popped over from time to time to see how ,,,tyson,,,, was, thats what she called it, i kept on trying to explain to her it would be better free  and would join its pals;;;so evventualy gave in , but to make sure it didnt come back, i released it about 5 miles away and to my surprise it was on the loft the next day, the bird had never been out and hardly even seen out side, yet hes there, so im stuck wiyh tyson.  the best of it is some of my stock birds got out [bred in the loft but never been out]  thy dissapeared alltogether, i think, just out of curiosity ill keep taking tyson further just to see how far he will go p.s the bird is in tip top condition.

[Guest shadow]

There are a lot of theories about how pigeons find their way home, magnetic fields, eyesight. smell, but what ever it is the good ones have it and the duffers don't. For every race we hold the good homers make it in race time where as the rest take their time so must be slower at finding the right line this is displayed very well on the FBI pigeon site. if some of you have not seen it take a look.  

[Guest]

I am aware of many theories, but the one mooted this year about following the roads home must be the most stupid I've ever heard. Then again, maybe my Lille candidate is still waiting for the road to be built over the English Channel. And God help the pigeons expected to find there way between two boats sailing somewhere in an ocean, courtesy of the latest mad scientist (BHW report).

Some of the experiments previously carried out on pigeons sound quite horrendous, like the one where plastic discs were glued to the inside of several birds' eyelids, and they were released blind to find there way home - and did!!!  Er, a pair off them for me, please.

Personally, I believe that it is a combination of special faculties which birds in general can use, most of which have been mentioned here. As far as sunspots, radiation, changes in magnetic fields are concerned, these have been around for millions of years. Birds have been around for 60 million years. I'm sure they have learned to cope by now! That thing called evolution, for example, should have ensured that birds can deal effectively with any and all of these natural events.

[Guest]

i think its supposed to be a combination of the sun , the earths magnetic field and somthing else but i forgot the name and they also are supposed to be determined (above any other animal) to get back to thier home so in a way they are the ultimate athlete(or at least i think so)

 

does any one agree?????

[Guest shadow]

There are a lot of wild birds that have good homing instinct and fly longer distances.  Swallows swans geese ,swifts when you think tha swifts fly over a thousand miles constantly on the wing. Puts our 5-600 milers to shame, and they are not trained.

[Guest]

yea but can u basket them up and send them to france .enjoy seeing them come home and do they have a homing sense so pigeons do it for me and always will

[Guest]

Think you hit the obvious 'fault' in all these theories about what's stopping pigeons getting home, Rose. Pigeons aren't the only things that fly in the sky that have 'homing' abilities - insects, bats as well as the other birds. Puffins go to the bottom of the sea for sand eels, get a beak full of them, get back to the surface and return home to feed young in a burrow. Haven't heard of any trying to stuff eels down a rabbit. Haven't heard of a world-wide shortage of honey because bees can't get back to their hives either. Dogs and cats and other wild animals 'home' too. Haven't seen many lions roaming about Falkirk town centre either. So why don't mobile phones, radar, radiation, sun flares, magnetic disturbances -ad nauseum- affect these 'homers' too?

[rlez]

earlier this year ,the girl across the road handed in, babie street pigeon which had been injured, i kept this in a box till it had recovered, then at her request put in my small loft and aviary ,they could only see 3 ydsout the aviary facing my house, she popped over from time to time to see how ,,,tyson,,,, was, thats what she called it, i kept on trying to explain to her it would be better free  and would join its pals;;;so evventualy gave in , but to make sure it didnt come back, i released it about 5 miles away and to my surprise it was on the loft the next day, the bird had never been out and hardly even seen out side, yet hes there, so im stuck wiyh tyson.  the best of it is some of my stock birds got out [bred in the loft but never been out]  thy dissapeared alltogether, i think, just out of curiosity ill keep taking tyson further just to see how far he will go p.s the bird is in tip top condition.

hi jim

a mate of mine in kent breeds his ybs in march and never lets them out till september,he breeds 40 or so ybs and lets them out say on a saturday he will have no birds in his loft for about 2days when they start drifting back by the following saturday he would have most of them home he would then start to train them he would give them 4 or 5 tosses working them up to 60mls then leave till next year,i think that most of the losses are down to the fact that we may be breeding off sub-standard stock thats not been tested and i mean sent to the distance of say 500mls any that come home you breed from them.if we only sent them say 300mls and no further we all would a loft full of untried birds ,we must allways set a test for every bird over the yearling stage and if they pass the test ok,just my opinion jim

 

[frank-123]

got a bird from the scottish borders in my loft so next day iam working in coldstream in the borders released the yb and it came all the way back to lanarshire (60 miles) reports the bird the guy says keep it so take it training15 miles never comes back????

 

DONT UNDERSTAND NEVER WILL!!!!!!

[jimmy white]

the old story applies, youll never get to the bottom of them

i would have thought that a good subject, for a university ,to look in to

[westburylofts]

ONE DID

AND CAME OUT WITH THE IDEAR THAT THEY FOLLOW THE ROADS, LOL

WHAT A WASTE OF MONEY THAT WAS,

 

RAY

[jimmy white]

i hear what your saying westbury and agree fully with you, but i was meaning a proper survey, electronic chips etc, just to determine the flight path , the losses, the way the winners came , the weather , the distance, where the birds come down , overnight,HOW MANY CASUALTIES   , in certain 2 day distance races do the birds that come down first, win, or the birds that have flown out the full 16 hours  etc etc etc , if universities could do a proper survey, with fanciers involvedI  i think it would be most interesting.... strange and fastenating things, pigeons

i remember the late george bain had a bird reported 5mies from his loft in a 550 mile race, he would have been in the first dozen in the national, but the bird was flown out and would not leave that loft, not even the next day, when he went to collect it, the race was over, at least he was honest,,.then the big question is would we want to know , or would we prefer not to know, i for one would like to know

[Guest]

I think they are starting to use GPS in a university loft, ive read it somewhere on the net. One site shows a bird with GPS attached (fbipigeons) and shows its different routes when liberated from the same point, and it was amazing that it never took the same route twice until it got about half way, then it seemed to follow a certain route. I was told a good story last week about the pigeon Northern Light that topped the combine from bourges (only bird on the day and it was flown to the next allotment to my old loft), the next year it was sent to bourges again, but didnt return on the night. The next morning the bloke got a phone call from someone about 30 mile down the road, and he had picked Northern Light up off the side of the road at 8.30pm the night B4. If he had rang the night B4, he could have topped the combine again.

[Guest]

Hi, Sbelbin. Can confirm that 'never the same way' was my experience when doing the birds single-up. Basically stopped making judgements on each bird based solely on the direction the bird 'disappeared from view' as I reckon its them that know how they get home, not me.

 

Share the same wish as Jimmy though. Would like to know more about what is actually going on. I've a whole trawl of internet stuff on 'bird navigation' that I want to read during the winter months. Also, having read some of the early experiments on 'magnetic field' agree with Jimmy that people who know about pigeons need to be involved too. Can I run one of these experiments by you and ask your thoughts?

 

The old magnet trick. Several birds had 'small magnets' attached to their heads and were released along with others who hadn't anything attached. 'Funnily' enough the ones without got home no bother and the ones with, had more than a bit of bother, but eventually got home too. Conclusion? Birds use earth's magnetic field to get home.  

 

Now I wonder if others would agree with that conclusion. The reason I ask is wouldn't anything attached to a bird's head cause it a bit of bother getting home?

[Guest]

I think it will always be hard to train a bird to fly with something attached to it. My thoughts on the GPS is that if the 'Phone mast' theories were right, then surely if the GPS is transmitting info to a satelite, then surely this would interfere with the birds navigation. I know when training my YBS this year they were liberated each morning into rain/sun/fog basically any weather i could to give them a hard time, to make them think. In 30 chucks I didnt lose any, and they were liberated in some horrible weather. This was early in the morning, so there were no batches to distract them.  The thing that I observed was when you could see no sun the birds would take a lot longer to come home, fog didnt seem to bother them, they would just go higher, infact their 2nd chuck was in fog, but I let them go above the fog on the hills and they did 1 turn and where off in the right direction. Im convinced they use the sun the orientate themselves. One thing that Ive noticed is that when there is static in the air, the birds appear to lose there bearings and seem to fly into the dark until they cant fly any longer, this has happened a few times to me.

[Guest]

Interesting post, Sbelbin, training to excercise the pigeons brain rather than its muscles. Agree with your 'visibility' observations and quite clear from them that the pigeon uses a number of cues and switches between them at will.

 

Can you explain what you mean by static? (Maybe next question will seem silly depending on your answer to the first): How do you tell its there?

[Guest]

I dont have any special equipment to measure the static, just personal observations, like B4 and after a thunder storm, you get a still feeling in the air, which is apparently an increase in static, and the birds seem to sense there is something not right.

[Guest]

Reason I asked, Sbelbin was a letter into the BHW a while back about static and answered by Steve Appleby who says just as you have that there is static in the air during a thunderstorm... he also says that this is the only time you'll get it.

 

Had visions of a smoky you complete with singed hair standing on a mountain top... pay more attention to the 'cloud & lightning flash' on the weather forecasts !!!! ;D   ;D

[Guest slugmonkey]

Recently read about eagles having a certain part in eye that is sensitive to magnetic fields it stated that this causes eagle mild discomfort when disrupted