Homing pigeon orientation influenced by deflected winds at home loft

Abstract

An attempt to repeat studies performed by Baldaccini et al. (1975b) in which pigeons exhibited predictably deviated mean vanishing bearings after prolonged exposure to deflected wind flow is reported. In four sets of pooled release data, deflections in mean bearings as predicted by the olfactory hypothesis of pigeon homing were observed. It is concluded that the time spent in such deflected-wind environments significantly alters some component of the birds' initial orientation mechanism.