The sea-finding behavior of hatchling olive ridley sea turtles, Lepidochelys olivacea, at the beach of San Miguel (Costa Rica)

Newly hatched olive ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea) were tested for their directional preferences in a sand-filled circular arena in total darkness. Hatchlings that had crawled about 5 m on the beach, toward the sea preferred the southwesterly direction that would have brought them to the water line, whereas hatchlings that had been denied this experience headed eastward, a direction of unclear origin. These data suggest that a short crawl across the natural beach can set the direction in which the young turtles subsequently move. The crawling experience was sufficient to acquire the compass course that they later follow, probably with the help of a magnetic compass, not only in the water, but already while still on land.     

When does bearing magnets affect the size of deflection in clock-shifted homing pigeons?

Pigeons whose internal clock is shifted by 6 h show deflections from the direction of untreated controls, yet these deflections are often smaller than predicted. Magnets temporarily disabling the magnetic compass increased these the deflections significantly (R. Wiltschko and Wiltschko 2001), indicating a compromise between sun compass and magnetic compass. – Recently, Ioalé et al. (2006) claim that they could not replicate our findings. The reason lies in a difference in the behavior of the clock-shifted pigeons without magnets: in the study of Ioalè et al. (2006), their deflections was already almost as large as that of our pigeons carrying magnets. This difference is probably caused by the limited experience of the pigeons of Ioalè et al. (2006): Their birds, in contrast to ours, had not used their sun’ compass during extended homing flights at various times of the year and, not having been faced with the necessity to compensate the saisonal changes of the sun’s arc, gave the sun compass more weight than our birds did.A comment to the paper by Ioalè, Odetti and Gagliardo (2006) Behav Ecol Sociobiol 60: 516–521.     

Orientation behavior of homing pigeons at the Gernsheim anomaly

Pigeons were released at four release sites within the Gernsheim anomaly, a magnetic 'hill' with a peak 199 nT above the regional reference field and gentle 'slopes' to all sides, situated 44 km south of the Frankfurt loft. Local magnetic conditions at the sites differed in total intensity and in direction and steepness of the intensity gradient. At all sites, the pigeons were well oriented, showing counterclockwise deviations from the home directions that were most pronounced in the western part of the anomaly. There was no systematic difference in orientation behavior or homing performance between the sites within the anomaly and a control site outside. No effect of the local gradient direction was found, nor did the difference in intensity between home loft and the release site affect behavior. This argues against the use of magnetic navigational factors. However, pigeons released for the first time within the anomaly tended to have longer mean vectors with increasingly steeper gradients, which could mean that the birds might somehow have realized the anomalous nature of the local magnetic conditions and ignored them, relying on non-magnetic cues instead.Communicated by R. Gibson     

Pigeon homing: Olfactory orientation—a paradox

Summary In order to find out whether the different ways that pigeons are raised and maintained at the various lofts affect their orientation behavior, especially the selection of navigational factors, a group of birds was raised according to the procedures of our Italian colleagues in a wind-exposed loft on the roof. The behavior of these R-birds was then compared with that of G-birds living in a garden loft, raised and trained according to the normal Frankfurt procedure. When R-birds were made anosmic by closing the nostril with cotton during transportation and a local anesthetic was used at release, their reaction was similar to that of Italian pigeons: the deviation of their vanishing bearings from the home direction increased significantly, leading to a marked decrease in homeward orientation. In contrast, the orientation of the anosmic G-birds did not differ from that of their controls; their directional selections agreed with those of the controls of the R-group. These data indicate that the conditions of raising and maintaining homing pigeons may be of crucial importance in determining the pigeons' attitude toward olfactory input. Finally, olfactory orientation is discussed; the paradoxical finding that the G-birds, not using olfaction, oriented like the controls of the R-group that did use olfactory input, leads to the question of whether olfactory input really conveys navigational information to the birds.     

Magnetic compass orientation in birds and its physiological basis

A current model suggests that magnetoreception of compass information starts with light-dependent primary processes. Light-dependency of magnetoreception is supported by behavioral experiments with homing pigeons and caged migratory birds. Three passerine species showed normal orientation under dim monochromatic light from the blue-green range of the spectrum, while they were disoriented under yellow and red light. A sevenfold increase in intensity and pre-exposure to specific wavelengths caused changes in behavior. The behavioral data indicate a complex relationship between the wavelength of light and magnetoreception, suggesting the involvement of more than one type of receptors. Extracellular recordings from the nucleus of the basal optic root and the tectum opticum identified units that responded to changes in magnetic North. Each unit showed a peak in a distinct spatial direction, so that the input of these units, processed collectively and integrated, would indicate compass directions.     

Magnetic compass orientation of European robins under 565 nm green light

European robins tested under monochromatic green light with a peak wavelength of 565 nm at an intensity of 2.1 mW m^-2 in the local geomagnetic field preferred their migratory direction, heading southward in autumn and northward in spring. Inverting of the vertical component of the magnetic field caused the robins to reverse their headings, indicating that the birds used a magnetic inclination compass to locate their migratory direction. The behavior recorded under green light at an intensity of 2.1 mW m^-2 is thus not different from that previously recorded under "white" light; it represents normal migratory orientation.