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 are, where you are heading and a map.
Richard Nissen
Editor
Evidence for a critical role of olfactory cues for homing after displacement in open ocean. Procellariiformes are pelagic birds which wander in the open sea most of the year and often nest in remote oceanic islands. These birds are able to pinpoint their breeding sites following straight routes even if their nesting island is located…
You will find other descriptions here of Henri Weimerskirch’s work on Albatrosses under Albatrosses on this site as well as Anna Gagliardo’s work on the use of smell in navigation. A book recently written by Adam Nicholson called “The Seabirds Cry” is fascinating about the mythology and lives of the sea birds in his book;…
A summary: The RIN Conference spends a lot of time on pigeon navigation, with delegates coming from all over the world. The leading players in this world are the Wilschkos from the Johann Wilfgang University Germany, M. Walker from the University of Auckland, and A. Gagliardo of the University of Pisa. Overall, it was decided…
There was a recent article in the media, including the New Scientist and the Times about the migration of the Banded Stilt, which seems to migrate very fast at short notice. The recent interest has been triggered by work done at Deakin University in Victoria Australia by Reece Pedler. Banded Stilts normally live on the…
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…
Recent work at Bognor University by a team headed by Charles Bishop has shown they actually follow the contours as they fly from their breeding ground in the high lakes North of the Himalayas south over the Himalayas into the Indian sub continent See wikipedia for images and an overview http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar-headed_goose This is an interesting…