Study of Homing Pigeons in Brazil: Some Preliminary Results

摘要

Observations of vanishing bearings are described. The ability of pigeons to home quite well under some rather unfavorable conditions, namely with the Sun not too far from the zenith and under total overcast in relatively weakly inclined magnetic fields, as well as in cases where the inclination of the magnetic field actually reverses during the flight home is discussed. Homing in regions where the apparent diurnal motion of the Sun's azimuth reverses during the year, the midday Sun being to the north in June and to the south in December, is reported. Homing right across the so called south atlantic anomaly, at which the principal component of the Earth's magnetic field has an absolute minimum, providing a situation in which the gradient of total intensity is zero in all directions, is also reported.