This paper is fascinating. This site has always been sceptical about Magnetoreception – the magnetic navigation story for the same reasons that are discussed here. No-one has found the magnetic receptors. the cryptochrome story requires conditions in the eye that are not conducive to quantum effects and knowing where North is does not help without a map showing where you are and where you are going so giving you the required bearing for navigation.
There has been a recent article in the New Scientist 9 August 2014 entitled: “Songbirds really do fly south for the winter” Scientists had postulated that intercontinental migratory songbirds flew north for the summer to breed in order to escape overcrowding and intense competition in the tropics. Most of us had always though that the…
This site takes you into the world where technology is trying to understand animal migration by using tags and a sophisticated satellite system to follow routes taken by animals. Up until now tags have often been very heavy, or at least too heavy for a lot of tiny birds that make huge migrations such as…
www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17855194 Please look at this link as it covers important ground on Avian Navigation. You will see that one of our heroes David Keays has established that the magnetite structure in the beaks of pigeons does not exist. The magnetic theory still has problems because you cannot navigate using a compass without knowing where you…
On 30th March 2015, Richard Silberstein gave a presentation to the Science Medical Network on “Universal Consciousness”: Mystics of various religious and spiritual traditions have, on occasion, described a mystical realisation as that of the entire universe’s conscious. In this talk, he described some novel parapsychological studies that may shed light on the question of whether consciousness constitutes an…
Phenotypic response to environmental cues, orientation and migration costs in songbirds flying halfway around the world by Heiko Schmaljohann et al. A polar system of intercontinental bird migration by Prof Thomas Alerstam et al. Cross-hemisphere migration of a 25 g songbird by Franz Bairlein et al. One of our heroes Prof Tomas Alerstam has directed us to this fascinating paper by Heiko…
We know that cuckoos nest over winter in the Congo and breed in Europe. UK cuckoos arrive in the latter part of April and lay their eggs in another bird’s nest. The common host of cuckoos are Reed warblers, Meadow pipits and even non-migratory Robins. The juveniles a month later in May. The fledgling casts out the other…