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[PATTY BHOY]

How do homing pigeons navigate?

They use the roads, it turns out, not just the sun.

 

Researchers at Oxford University spent 10 years studying homing pigeons using Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites and were stunned to find the birds often don't navigate by taking bearing from the sun.

Instead they fly along motorways, turn at junctions and even go around roundabouts, adding miles to their journeys, British newspapers reported.

 

"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," he said.

 

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 an 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."

 

 

[Guest Freebird]

What about before roads were in abundance? Just think, roads "motorways" usually go direct, so will the birds. Are they trying to say if there were no motorways then doos would get lost!!! I think the birds are just using their gray matter as little as possible just like us. Now how do they know whether to go M1 north or M1 south (evil)

[REDCHEQHEN]

One of mine uses the M6 - instead of the A1M (shrug)(shrug)

[kirky]

I say by the sun only, even with cloud cover thay will see rays through cloud

[Guest Freebird]

I say by the sun only, even with cloud cover thay will see rays through cloud

I say magnetism as swallows come some 2000 miles through all sorts of weather so do geese and a whole lot of other migratory birds so maybe a bit of both Kirky. I wonder if the rock dove was a migratory bird. I doubt it. Whatever the source of navigation it is trully amazing. Imagine you were dumped 500 miles from home with no prior knowledge and nobody to ask they way, where would we start!!! Sun, yes. Overcast hmmm!

 

 

[kirky]

I say magnetism as swallows come some 2000 miles through all sorts of weather so do geese and a whole lot of other migratory birds so maybe a bit of both Kirky. I wonder if the rock dove was a migratory bird. I doubt it. Whatever the source of navigation it is trully amazing. Imagine you were dumped 500 miles from home with no prior knowledge and nobody to ask they way, where would we start!!! Sun, yes. Overcast hmmm!

 

maybe it is a bit of both but thay all migrate at the same time each year each group of birds that is.

 

 

[Guest Freebird]

Yes they do and that is another good point. What triggers this. I know a place in China does not plant their rice crop until the swallow arrives and it aint the same day, date each year. We have a lot to learn, most of which we have forgoten.

[jimmy white]

"how do racing pigeons navigate "in my opinion they use many things,, mostly the sun , but do they recognise land marks , even by smell, or the earths magnetism ,, many many unanswered  questions ,,all theories ,, truth is we dont know for sure ,, we only know that whatever it is , the fitter the bird the better it can work its compass ,,and its wings

[OLDYELLOW]

seen quite a few programmes and a few theorys , magnetism , smell , sun , winds great bit about the four winds in old hands book if i rember rightly , but all theorys and they'll remain that way  

[gangster]

ive ordered mine tomtom maps....lol

[Guest spin cycle]

i think that as they get closer to home they recognize landmarks and familiar territory...but that can't be all otherwise we'd have to train to furthest racepoint (dizzy) i go with a combination of magnetics and sun.....i hope it remains undiscovered

[van Roberts]

what happens when the birds are liberated out at sea do they use the shipping lanes?

[OLDYELLOW]

what happens when the birds are liberated out at sea do they use the shipping lanes?

 

pigeons have the benifit of flying pretty high i guess they head for nearest visable land but who knows , some say smell so perhaps pollen is caried on the wind which would give them the lands dirrection

[tippler]

i live in london when i  use to take my pigeons training to cambridg i used to race them home i noticed that thay hedge hop mening thay stayed low in fileld and when thay came to ahdge went over it and came back down again  ive allso noticed  this with the up north combin  pigeons when thave have been relsed from brands hatch thay come over my house so low its amazing that ive still got a roof its anamazing thing to see the noise and speed of these pigeons is unbalevable all packed to gether no time to go round  roundabouts  as fore seeing there way home  thay go to farst fore that

[REDCHEQHEN]

i live in london when i  use to take my pigeons training to cambridg i used to race them home i noticed that thay hedge hop mening thay stayed low in fileld and when thay came to ahdge went over it and came back down again  ive allso noticed  this with the up north combin  pigeons when thave have been relsed from brands hatch thay come over my house so low its amazing that ive still got a roof its anamazing thing to see the noise and speed of these pigeons is unbalevable all packed to gether no time to go round  roundabouts  as fore seeing there way home  thay go to farst fore that

 

I fly in the Up North Combine and in 2004/5/6 the birds would go so low over you could practically touch them as they hedge hopped - or fence hopped even - so tightly packed together its a wonder they had the room to flap their wings unheeded

 

2007/8 a different story - don't know why - but we hardly ever see any birds now - and where we'd see kits of several hundreds in previous years  - there'd barely be a hundred in the kits we do see now

 

with 6 liberations at most race points - you could count the liberations - there was a distinct end to one and start to another - but again - not any more - they just seem to intermingle and you can't tell the liberations apart

[Roland]

How do homing pigeons navigate?

They use the roads, it turns out, not just the sun.

 

Researchers at Oxford University spent 10 years studying homing pigeons using Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites and were stunned to find the birds often don't navigate by taking bearing from the sun.

Instead they fly along motorways, turn at junctions and even go around roundabouts, adding miles to their journeys, British newspapers reported.

 

"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," he said.

 

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 an 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."

 

 

Yep... seen this 10 or more years ago.

Mind Most motor way go North to South . East to West etc.

Often wonder how they navigated the 'Shipping Lanes' when flying Channels etc lol ;D ;D

 

[Michael J Burden]

I saw 2 programs about pigeons following land marks. They only let them go a few miles away. This was due to the size of the equipment attched to them. It really was interesting watching the camera pictures but too short to prove anything.

One program moved the loft about by quite a distance and they moved with it.

Another reared birds who never went out all their life. They were tossed singularly at sea one at a time. The only thing which I think this proved was that the people conducting the experiment were cruel. How the birds were ging to survive after this I have often wondered which the people conducting the experiment either did not think about or could not careless.

 

Pigeons find their way home best in ideal conditions, ie sunny and calm. But then they also navigate in fog and complete cloud cover. I except that some go missing but some make it.

 

"It's a mystery" to me as a singer once sang about. :'(

[Guest]

 

Yep... seen this 10 or more years ago.

Mind Most motor way go North to South . East to West etc.

Often wonder how they navigated the 'Shipping Lanes' when flying Channels etc lol ;D ;D

 

They shut their eyes and hope lol ;D ;D ;D

[Roland]

 

They shut their eyes and hope lol ;D ;D ;D

;D ;D ;D

 

 

[Guest]

or maybe use the eurotunnel  ;D ;D ;D

[jimmy white]

 

I fly in the Up North Combine and in 2004/5/6 the birds would go so low over you could practically touch them as they hedge hopped - or fence hopped even - so tightly packed together its a wonder they had the room to flap their wings unheeded

 

2007/8 a different story - don't know why - but we hardly ever see any birds now - and where we'd see kits of several hundreds in previous years  - there'd barely be a hundred in the kits we do see now

 

with 6 liberations at most race points - you could count the liberations - there was a distinct end to one and start to another - but again - not any more - they just seem to intermingle and you can't tell the liberations apart

 

i find in recent years this is true , why , i do not know,, years ago , on a sat you could identify the fife birds going over the central birds, the further north birds  going over,  etc etc in big batches  , now you just seem to see small bunches, or even half dozens or so,even twos and threes  nearly all day ,

,

the other difference i notice from years ago,, fanciers will time their first birds in , then have so many back, say in an hour ,, after this hour now,,they seem to dry up completely , most are lost , whereas they would drop in steady all day years ago,, but with fewer losses,, makes one wonder why these changes are occurring :-/