Micro-GPS to track birds and study their navigation
Via nouvo.ch, an curious project carried out by Hans-Peter Lipp. They studied pigeon navigation using small GPS attached to the birds.This led them to “the best evidence yet of pigeons following roads” as reported by science week:
The authors present an analysis of 216 GPS-recorded pigeon tracks over distances up to 50 km. Experienced pigeons released from familiar sites during 3 years around Rome, Italy, were significantly attracted to highways and a railway track running toward home, in many cases without anything forcing them to follow such guide-rails. Birds often broke off from the highways when these veered away from home, but many continued their flight along the highway until a major junction, even when the detour added substantially to their journey. (…) The authors suggest their data demonstrate the existence of a learned road-following homing strategy of pigeons and the use of particular topographical points for final navigation to the loft. Apparently, the better-directed early stages of the flight compensated the added final detour. .
November 29th, 2005 at 1:07 pm
Every morning at 8:30am, 2 pigeons land on the border of my home office window.
November 24th, 2006 at 9:54 am
hello , i am hobbies in java pigeon racing in indonesia ..would you mine to share information about how to use GPS for pigeon, and where i can get those things, and how much … and is there any new product gps more tiny for pigeon
please email : sofyan@askrindo.co.id
November 28th, 2006 at 12:12 pm
[…] I have heard of bears and birds (via pasta and vinegar) being tracked with GPS technology but I hadn’t heard about snow leopards being tracked until reading this BBC article in the Technology section. Mr Spearing said: “This study is the first time GPS technology has been used to track snow leopards. It is going to give us very accurate, detailed knowledge of the size of the cats’ home range and the sort of day-to-day movements they make.” The collars, when fitted, use GPS to pin-point the exact position of the cats several times a day. This information is then beamed to researchers’ inboxes via the US-French Argos-satellite data-relay system. […]
March 20th, 2007 at 4:45 am
Well i live near a farm of pigeons breeders. If they know something like this….uh uh
March 31st, 2007 at 10:48 am
Hi! I’m a student at Ohio Weleyan University and I’m writing a comparative paper on the navigation systems of two different animals, one of which being homing pigeons. I am wondering if you know of any new information or discoveries in this area. Any information or especially article or book suggestions would be really appreciated. Thank you