OXFORD, England -- How do homing pigeons manage to find their way home when miles away? They head down Main Street until reach the Mickey D's on the right. There they onto the Garden Parkway, going south for about 10 miles until they see the sign for Route A34. In other words, they follow roads and landmarks in the same way human drivers do.
Tim Guilford, a zoologist at Oxford University, said he and his team of researchers were "knocked ... sideways" when they discovered how homing pigeons navigate across the English countryside. The team outfitted the pigeons with tiny Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) units to track them. The units sent signals to a network of 27 satellites orbiting the globe.
A pigeon carrying a GPS unit can be monitored the entire time it is traveling.
"It was almost comical watching one group of birds that we released near a major ... road," Guilford told The Times of London. "They followed the road to the first junction, where they all turned right, and a couple of junctions on they all turned left."
Guilford says that a homing pigeon making its first trip home from a location will use the sun as a compass. Homing pigeons have a circadian clock, an internal body clock that tells them what time of day it is. Using that clock, a pigeon will adjust for the time of day by using the sun as a directional finder. As it flies cross-country, the pigeon will also learn the layout of the highway system. During future trips, it will follow the highways instead of using the sun.
"If [pigeons] have made a journey before, [they] are more likely to say, 'Well, I know this is south--the way I want to be going--but rather than fiddle around with my inbuilt compass, I'm going to follow the A34, which will take me home nicely,'" said Guilford.
Pigeon fanciers confirm Guilford's findings. "Every Saturday you can see whole flocks of pigeons flying up the M5," said Peter Brian, general manager of the Royal Pigeon Racing Association.
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