Pigeons

Ways pigeons might home

Here is a fascinating YouTube video discussing different ways a pigeon might home. The people shown here are our heroes, who are really important people in the animal navigation world and especially in Pigeon navigation. You will find Tim Guildford at Oxford University, who believes that pigeons follow landmarks, The Wiltchokos who believe in magnetic…

Mathematical analysis of the homing flights of pigeons based on GPS tracks

Ingo Schiffner At the RIN 11 Animal Navigation Conference Ingo Schiffner, presented a paper: Mathematical Analysis of Pigeon Tracks, characterisation of the underlying Navigational Process and now he has produced another paper covering Mathematical analysis of the homing fights of pigeons based on GPS tracks. For me, this work begins to create an underlying mathematical basis…

Another description of how animal navigation might work

In a recent address to RIN Dr Kate Jeffery of the Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience at University College London described a very complete structure for understanding animal navigation. See https://animalnav.org/navigation-networks-in-the-brain/ We at www.animalnav.org have been struggling with exactly these concerns. Prof Jeffery postulates that you need four things to create a navigation system A compass…

The hippocampus of rats

Prof Kate Jeffery has done some very interesting work on how the hippocampus of rats processes navigational information. Scientists are clear that the hippocampus is critical for navigation but believe that it is only one part of a larger system that has many functions including recognising landmarks, computing distances and directions etc. and forming memories….

Solar Activity Effects on Pigeons

How do pigeons navigate? Racing homing pigeons navigate incredible distances with apparent ease. A champion racing pigeon can be released 400 miles from its home loft, in a place it has never been before, and return within 1 day. The last 40 miles of its journey, the bird navigates by sight. But over the other 360…

Interesting link from a pigeon fancier on how pigeon’s navigate

Intro>>> Here is a very interesting article that talks about all the issues of racing pigeons. He stresses three very important points. First that in his opinion pigeons navigate very badly if on release the sun is not shining. He thinks that they need the sun to navigate by if possible. Second the wind direction…

Does the geomagnetic field intensity affect the flight path of homing pigeons?

Analysis of GPS recorded tracks of intact trigeminal sectioned pigeons. Conditioning studies have shown that the ophthalmic branch of the trigeminal nerve is functionally involved in the perception of the geomagnetic field intensity. However, homing experiments conducted in the field with homing pigeons demonstrated that trigeminal mediation of magnetoreception is neither necessary nor sufficient for…