The orientation of homing pigeons in relation to change in sun declination

Abstract

The sun navigation hypothesis ofMatthews is briefly reviewed with special reference to his sun occlusion experiment which supports this hypothesis. The results of a similar experiment are presented in which 13 young pigeons were kept from sight of the sun during a seven day period including the fall equinox while the sun height at noon decreased 3° 6.7′. When the birds were released from a point 93 km. south of their loft they were exposed to a noon sun height equal to that of a point north of their home loft eight days earlier. Nevertheless they showed a northward orientation as did the 10 control birds with no difference in homing performance between the experimental and control groups. These results are not in agreement with those ofMatthews and do not support his sun navigation hypothesis.