New Study Shows New Theory of How Homing Pigeons Find Home

The mystery of how homing pigeons are able to navigate home may have been solved with new research showing that the birds use low-frequency sound waves to make a mental map of their location.

A study that was published online Wednesday in the Journal of Experimental Biology, proposes an intriguing theory for homing pigeon disorientation-that the birds are following ultralow frequency sounds back towards their lofts and that disruptions in their ability to "hear" home is what screws them up.

In 1969, a Cornell biology professor gave a talk to geologists at the school about the mystery of the lost homing pigeons. If the pigeons were taken to almost any locations, they headed straight home with amazing accuracy. But at one location, called Jersey Hill, the pigeons got completely lost, with each taking off in a random direction. At two other locations, the birds consistently headed in the same wrong direction.

United States Geological Survey geologist John Hagstrum heard the talk, and the question nagged at him for years. In the 1990s, he discovered that birds in European pigeon races were going astray on clear-weather days, when the Concord, the supersonic plane, was in the area. That led him to wonder whether the sonic boom from the Concorde plane disrupted pigeon navigation by interfering with the sound waves.

For years, scientists have struggled to explain carrier pigeons' directional challenges in certain areas, known as release-site biases.

This "map" issue, or a pigeon's ability to tell where it is in relation to where it wants to go, is different from the bird's compass system, which tells it which direction it's headed in.

"We know a lot about pigeon compass systems, but what has been controversial, even to this day, has been their map [system]," said Cordula Mora, an animal behavior researcher at Bowling Green State University in Ohio who was not involved in the study.