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.
I love this little observation by James Mather… “I was on a ladder clearing the gutters end of last week, and over a period of hours heard a number of flocks of birds gathering to migrate, and I could see them heading off in V-formation. Then, at one point, low cloud closed in, but I…
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…
Nature’s Radar a paper by Tristan Gooley (one of our heroes) published in the Journal of Navigation in October 2012. Tristan and a friend set out in a little boat to navigate from Kirkwall on the North of Ockney via the Faroes over the top of Iceland to Reykjavik. Please see http://www.naturalnavigator.com/nature’s_radar.pdf for the full paper. The…
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….
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…
http://www.2physics.com/2012/10/avian-compass-reloaded.html Please find this interesting piece entitled The Avian Compass Reloaded by Dagomir Kaszlikowski at the Centre for Quantum Technologies, Department of Physics, National University of Singapore. Kaszlikowski talks about the the quantum effect that is required to enable the Cryptochromes in the eye of the European Robin to be sensitive to the earth’s magnetic field….