This paper on navigation using the sun is an interesting one by Richard Massy and Karl R. Wotton. Already Tristan Gooley the natural navigator and one of our heroes walked across Crete to prove that the brain can in fact compensate for the movement of the sun during the day and keep a course by adjusting to it.
The Cuckoo is one of the migrants we know least about once it leaves the UK, however the BTO track, on their amazing site, the movements of five Cuckoos from breeding grounds in East Anglia to their winter quarters in Africa. http://www.bto.org/science/migration/tracking-studies/cuckoo-tracking Cuckoo tracking what we’ve learnt so far: http://www.bto.org/science/migration/tracking-studies/cuckoo-tracking/what-have-we-learnt Latest Cuckoo tracking news: http://www.bto.org/science/migration/tracking-studies/cuckoo-tracking/european-cuckoo-study…
Intro>> The Rutland (England) Osprey Project has been running for 18 years when Ospreys began to breed again on Rutland Water in the UK after 150 years. These birds are cared for by the Rutland Osprey Project who have fitted GPS trackers to some of these birds which give very accurate and detailed data of…
Warrant11 2016 Here is a fascinating paper about The Australian Bogong Moth Agrotis infusa: which is the most amazing Long-Distance Nocturnal Navigator. As they navigate at night their feat is perhaps even more amazing than the migration of the Monarch butterfly in the USA. Richard Nissen editor Warrant E, Frost B, Green K, Mouritsen H, Dreyer D, Adden A, Brauburger K and Heinze S (2016) The Australian…
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 bar tailed Godwit is about 37/39cms (15ins) long which summers in the arctic yet migrates to warmer locations during the winter. These include astonishing non-stop flights over the Pacific to New Zealand every Northern winter. As you can see from the tracks, you will see it flies in a perfect straight flight from the Arctic…
Intro I have put together this article to spell out some of the thinking that I have come across recently. A lot is highly contentious (such as Torsion waves) but as we struggle to understand how animals (and humans) navigate effortlessly, ideas which seemed so strong suddenly seem to be beset by impossible conditions. We…