[blam]

Damn lazy birds.

[blam]

[Spruce]

They just know where the food is. Snacking all the way home.

[Riley]

They're flying IFR.

"I Follow Roads".

[LibWhacker]

We even had one bird flying down the road, going round the roundabout . . .

Sounds like they're better drivers than some of the people I see out there!

[Consort]

They follow the roads so that they can drop bird poop on convertables with their tops down.

[Solamente]

Poppycock!

http://soma.npa.uiuc.edu/courses/physl490b/models/spatial_learning/spatial_learning.html

[Hunble]

FEMALE pigeons stop by the nearest gas station and ask for directions.

Normal pigeons do it by instict.

[CommandoFrank]

Two points:

1 - I remember a study from long ago where an experment was done with homing pigeons. They had placed a small electromagnetic coil around their heads (or neck). When released to fly home, the birds flew around confused and not one of them got back home. The conclusion... they used the earths magnetic field for navigation.

2 - That had to be one unique GPS device. For them to plot the pigeon, that device had to calculate the position (no problem), record the info for retrieval later (no problem) or transmit the birds position real time to a receiver (no porblem). The problem for me seems to be that no matter how you collect the date, that poor pigeon is loaded down with one hell of a backpack for a small bird...

[wideminded]

Aren't pigeons supposed to have a structure in their brains that can detect the Earth's magnetic field? I suppose this would give them a sense of orientation, but not absolute location, so maybe that's why they need the roads.

[Doctor Stochastic]

So, how far is it if the crow has to walk and roll a flat tire?

[Polybius]

Do the female pigeons backseat drive?

[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.