ARE PIGEONS ABLE TO HOME WHEN RELEASED OVER THE SEA

Abstract

SUMMARY With 106 homing pigeons belonging to two different lofts (Florence and San Piero a Grado, near Pisa) 209 vanishing points were noted from release sites in the open sea and on land at a distance varying between 100 and 255 km from the loft. In five releases in the Tyrrhenian Sea the animals took average directions varying from 111° to 169° showing a tendency in all five releases to fly towards SE: the deviation from the average vector of the home direction resulted as 120°, 72°, 50°, 87°, and 150°. In two releases from the Adriatic the vanishing points were distributed at random, or were accumulated in a direction opposed to that expected (average deviation from the home direction = 174°). In six releases on land there was only one case of random distribution of the vanishing points, while in the other five a correct orientation towards home was noted with a deviation of the average vector from the home direction of 4°, 26°, 27°, 43′° and 48°. In the releases from land 11 out of 87 adults (12.6%) w...