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 head north across the Sahara. Fingers crossed for good weather and a safe flight.
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 is a lot of work going on in the navigation field. All the researchers in this field are now clear that navigation takes place in the sub-conscious. I made the mistake of thinking that native peoples who seemed to navigate perfectly without any aids could tell me how they did it, but language is…
Useful links wikipedia.org/wiki/Swallow birdsofbritain.co.uk/bird-guide/swallow.asp Below is the of the swallow migration map: www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/autumnwatch/2009/11/lates… We, in Europe, measure the beginning of Spring by the arrival of the swallows. Many swallows make a 6,000 mile journey from Europe to winter in South Africa and back. I believe, that the way that swallows make this migration is by…
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…
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;…
Alaska Bird Makes Longest Nonstop Flight Ever Measured USGS Alaska Science Center Bar–tailed Godwit Updates