Speakin' of pigeons
I've never actually raised and raced them myself,but I do have several friends that do,so I've been around it quite a bit.
The $64,000 question is;
How do they find their way home??
The general concensus(sp) around here is that with their very complicated eyes,they can actually see the stars in the daytime which tells them what direction to go.
Which makes sense because the racers never fly them in overcast/stormy weather.
Any other ideas??
BW
The $64,000 question is;
How do they find their way home??
The general concensus(sp) around here is that with their very complicated eyes,they can actually see the stars in the daytime which tells them what direction to go.
Which makes sense because the racers never fly them in overcast/stormy weather.
Any other ideas??
BW
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A freind of mine used to have pigeon's living in his cattle barn's. Man they sure were fun to shoot.[:D] 0 -
We call them "Commies".(for "Common pigeons")
And yes,they do eat pretty good.[:p]
BW0 -
It's the micro GPS in thier little heads!
Seriously though, It's amazing with all the technology at our disposal that we stil don't understand questions like that. Dogs and cats have been known to navigate great distances to get home too. How do salmon return to the same stream that they were hatched in to spawn? How do animals seem to know of an impending disaster like an earthquake or tsunami?0 -
And Purple Martins always return to where they were raised.
BW0 -
Actually we do understand how they do it even if we cannot. It is a version of how birds migrate. Partly it is visual, birds learn the routes of migration. Since they also migrate high enough in many cases to be in or above clouds and cannot see the ground they can also sense the magnetic field of the planet and literally do have a mini GPS in their heads that guides them. It works so well in homing pigeons that they can return home from unknown areas. They usually are sent in the same general direction. 0 -
Yes they are more sensitive to the Earth's Magnetic Field than we are. And the Chinese can now actually "remote control" them by implanting a chip in their brain.[:0] 0 -
Had a friend that used to race them, he said they learned landmarks near the loft. Then he'd take them 10 miles away and release them. They would climb until they spotted their landmarks and head for home. This would continue with further and further distances away from the loft. He stated that on the early 50 mile training flight, the last 1/2 would only take 1/4 of the time the first 25 miles did, as they were nolonger searching for their landmarks.
Word is that their eyesite is fantastic, and that they can pick out a eagle at something over 20 miles away.
A lot of the ones that are found are poor racers (and not worth having), but a number of them can and do get blown off course by the wind and will try to get home once they've recovered their strength.0 -
No one knows for sure.
It's been ruled out that they memorize landmarks or that they use the earth's polarity. Experiments have been conducted where pigeons were transported long distances over a circitous route in closed boxes with small magnets attached to their heads, but they still manage to find their way back to the loft.
One theory is that because their eyes operate into the ultraviolet spectrum they see the sky as a pattern made up of varying bands of light. They know their loft's general position on the ground in relation to these patterns and after reaching the area they look for landmarks and the loft itself.
This would also explain their inability to find their way home beyond certain distances. They have to be slowly trained using increasing distances to broaden their picture of these light band patterns, with their limit eventually being around 150 miles. However, there are numerous cases on record of them being able to find their way 300 miles or so.
Something that lends credibility to this is their history of military use, where their lofts were constantly moving with the troops. For example during WWI we used loft wagons might travel several miles while a pigeon was away. The birds were removed from the loft and carried on operations in a small basket attached to a soldier's kit. Upon release the birds were observed navigating back to the general area they'd left from, then searching until spotting their loft at it's new location with the aid of large symbol painted on it's roof.
A bit of pigeon trivia-Most people assume pigeons return because it was their birthplace or because it's where they're fed. This is true to a degree, but long distance homing pigeons are trained using a system called widowing. Pigeons mate for life, so if only one bird from a pair is taken and released it returns to rejoin it's mate.0
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