Bird Homing Instinct
Location: Outside U.S.
What is meaning exactly by the homing instinct of birds?
There is no exact definition. In the U.S. "homing" usually means the
specific ability, often enhanced by training, of domestic pigeons to
return to their cotes. A more general "homing instinct" refers to the
ability of some birds to return to their home territories after being
intentionally or accidentally moved miles away. And even more
generally, the word may be used when talking about long range seasonal
migration, in which birds may return to the same nesting area several
years in a row.
When people refer to the "homing instinct of birds" they are referring to
the behavior that when some species of birds, most notably pigeons, are
taken from their home nest and released some distance away, that the birds
tend to return to their home nest. This implies that the birds have a way
of navigating from an unknown location to their home base. Scientists have
several ideas of how the birds do this and there is some evidence of how
they achieve this, but conclusive evidence of how this happens has not been
found, yet. Maybe you can find the answer to how the birds can do this.
This is also related to the phenomenon of long range migrating birds such as
cranes, geese, ducks, and hummingbirds.
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Update: June 2012