How Do Homing Pigeons Navigate? They Follow Roads

The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 2-5-2004 | Caroline Davies

[Ichneumon]

I have a special interest in pigeon stories, for I used to race one.

Who usually won -- you or the pigeon?

[Young Werther]

The pigeons frontal lobe contains magnetite. The have natural compasses and use the Earths magnetic field to navigate.

[Johnny_Cipher]

Me. But boy were my arms tired.

[Young Werther]

Recently I was remensicing about my mis-spent college days. I could have earned money brushing rats teeth for a $1.25 per hour but thought this Colgate study was lame!!!

How do you determine a birds gonad size? You put on a pair of rubber gloves and say,

"Turn your head to the left and cough!"

[Hunble]

It's a girl thing....

[Ichneumon]

"'but rather than fiddle around with my inbuilt compass I'm going to follow the A34, which will take me home nicely'."

Mystery solved:

[Ichneumon]

How Do Homing Pigeons Navigate? They Follow Roads

But some of them are still trying to get the hang of the correct altitude:

[Petronski]

Landlady: Oh, you must be tired. It's a long way from Coventry, isn't it?

Johnson: Well, we usually reckon on five and a half hours and it took us six hours and 53 minutes, with the 25 minute stop at Frampton Cottrell to stretch our legs; and we had to wait half an hour to get onto the M5 at Droitwich.

Landlady: Really?

Johnson: Then there was a three mile queue just before Bridgewater on the A38. We usually come round on the B3339, you see, just before Bridgewater.

Landlady: Yeah. Really?

Johnson: We decided to risk it 'cause they always say they're going to widen it there. Yes, well just by the intersection there where the A372 joins up. There's plenty of room to widen it there, there's only grass verges. They could get another six feet, knock down that hospital. Then we took the coast road through Williton - we got all the Taunton traffic on the A358 from Crowcombe and Stogumber.

[wideminded]

Interesting. There are probably a lot of genomics researchers who would like to write papers about you and your dad. It would do wonders for their careers, but I'm not sure if there is a lot in it for you.

[Hunble]

Sorry, we learned a long time to not talk about that subject.

I am rather surprised that I even mentioned it tonight.

But good grief, even I can navigate by using a magnetic field!

Never mind, I just deleted a few examples of how I have used this while in the Army. But yes, it can be handy at times to always know where North is.

[Hunble]

How do I explain this:

It is like standing on a slope and even with your eyes closed, you know that you are on a slope.

When I am facing North or South, I feel "balanced" and no longer have that sloping feeling.

And yes, I can never tell the difference between North and South.

[wideminded]

A scientist would want to come up with some absolutely convincing tests of your ability. If you passed these, someone might like to test if you have any genes which are similar to ones essential for magnetic navigation in pigeons and magnetotactic bacteria. It seems plausible to me that this might be found. Apparently magnetite has already been found in human brain tissue. although I don't know if anything has been published on human magnetic navigation.

[skinkinthegrass]

"Turn your head to the left and cough!"

Cough! Cough! Cough! LOL! :))