How Do Homing Pigeons Get Home? | Extraordinary Animals | BBC Earth

Hmmm..... Nature smells differently based on the four different seasons.

To say they navigate by smell is ridiculous

I'm pretty sure they uses sense of smell navigating thier way home i once borrowed a hen pigeon from my friend to breed never let her out the cage, so she shouldn't have idea where my loft are. But when i return her at her owner about a kilometer away from my loft she came back the next day waiting outside of my cage where her chick's are.

Mashallah and welcome to my channel all about the goldfinch ❤👌

We could give 100 different ways but no one knows the true method they used to reach home magnetic variations is good tho I'll wait till tomorrow to see if those I let go in the dark really reaches back home after 300 miles

That's alot of horse shit. It is not snell

yea but what about monarch butterflies? They can go from Canada to Mexico clearly without memory, they don't even live long enough to make the journey on their own. has to biological

But how do they know where they have to go

I always thought pigeons were dumb, I can't even find my way home after a night out in town!

And what if the wind blows in the other direction?

An absolutely terrible and misinformed video. How on earth did they fail to mention the many experiments that have shown the pigeons finding their way home even with their olfactory nerves severed.

It is better to just say that we have no idea than to use your theory as evidence. Nevertheless, I disagree with the theory of smell, it is just not logical.

Animals never stop fascinating me with their abilities. God bless those wonderful creatures! <3 I love you pigeons!

Well clearly there is a logical error of inference, take the premise against the magnetism theory:

1) No matter how many compasses you have, unless you know where you are to begin with, you won't know which direction to take.

This is clearly true for humans, but it does not follow that pigeons should be any less lost if you were to blindfold them and drop them in the middle of the Atlantic - not if their 'compass' is centred in on their home. No matter which way you took them, their home would rotate according to the axis you turned them on, kind of like a gyroscope. 'But how do you explain depth!? I hear you cry.' Well, if they reach their home in longitude and latitude, the altitude is hardly going to be of much concern. I mean, how realistically can you hide a pigeon home in height or depth? If they reach the top of the empire state building, it's not much of a leap for them to conclude their coop is in the foyer.

So, the objection to the magnetism theory is a totally illogical conclusion. I hope someone has realised this in the last 5 years.

It is not very convincing. Do you have Andy evidence. Plz do share it with us.

Such an intelligent bird.

dude, pigeons are cool

Pigeons: Google Map

Pigeons were used as postmen by ancient kings

My Pigeon always return to our house. sometimes,it cameback with another pigeon.

no such thing as get or not

Lovely explained. Thank you!

from what i know birds have a very poor sense of smell except for vultures and i think kiwis

Birds don't smell well though... It's a gyroscope type of GPS inside of their heads.

hallo

Nobody is bothered with flying pigeons they get their orientation in brains of the magnetic effect of sun and moon.

Can u sell it

Scientist should be honest when they don't know something.

I don't even  think pigeons have a strong  sense of smell. Besides, what if the  wind is blowing the other way?  The birds likely use electromagnetic  and ultraviolet  sensory abilities to locate the sun- even behind clouds- and to  know which way is  it's coop. There is no way of knowing how much plain old  brainpower is involved, but all flying animals must navigate- it isn't just homing pigeons who can find their way.  Insects, fishes,  mamals all  travel  far and wide and find their way home. My dog knows it's way home from anywhere I ever walked her .

I used one to ask out my girl

Smell my but. That can easily be ruled out. This video is partly lies and partly true and honestly they really don't know how they do it.

this is my new phone

hi

God

You can never lose a homing pigeon - if your homing pigeon doesn't come back, what you've lost is a pigeon.

I saw one flying with a cell phone the other day. Pretty sure they just use Google Maps.

All pigeons home right?

They really are extraordinary. I never knew how awesome pigeons were.

it's the white tings on its nose that let it know where north is.

These pigeons are intuitive creatures. Love this video.

I like your video please upload more

  i have  pigeon  on my  proch  has yellow  tag  i been  try find someone who  can take back there   home where  she or he  belong i  been  try  reach dnr  no luck  i dunno who  call  pigeon breeders

Bet those pigeons are trolling us and giving us a hard time to figure out

I have no evidence of this, but I think they use Google Earth.

I saw a video where it purposed that they find their way home by listening to a sound created by the earth that is too low for us to hear

Please could you add captions

that moment when i realize pigeons have better sense of direction than me...
SMF!

As much as I hate when pigeons poop on me, they're still pretty awesome in that they have a great sense of direction.