For those of us following the BTO satellite tagged Cuckoos, we can see Spring is well on its way – three birds have already left their winter locations in the Congo rainforest and are at their stopover sites in West Africa. Later this month, rested and loaded with the fat that will fuel their journeys, they will…
Please enjoy this article by Marcus Bicknell who is a pilot in his own right but was also trained by his father, who flew reconnaissance missions all over the Content in Mosquitoes during the war, without any navigational aids, of course. This article is really interesting as, for me, this tells you how a good…
Please find this PDF which follows a lot of research on Albatrosses. This presentation throws up some really interesting issues. I feel comfortable that albatrosses when they decide to go home follow their sense of direction to their home islands in the South Atlantic: the Crozet Islands and Kerguelen as they fly straight there. However, please…
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…
This is a fascinating link that describes how in many languages you always refer to yourself and give instructions in a geographical manner: move your foot North for instance. This means that all the speakers of these languages always know their orientation. We know that language controls what we think but this use of language gives…
Our Editor Antonio Nafarrate has sent us this: Hello all and happy 2015. Please check enclosed forwarded video that is definite proof that birds have in their brains a Schuler tuned gyroscopically stabilized inertial platform. Best wishes from Antonio Nafarrate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dPlkFPowCc
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…