I enjoyed Bob Righter's post about "Bird Brains". As to using the sun as a
compass, from what I've read I believe birds have a built in compensation
mechanism to adjust their path to the number of degrees per hour the sun is
moving--i.e., they shift their paths by 15 degrees per hour say, to match the
sun's movement when on a course. However, experiments have shown that if you
"move" the bird to the other hemisphere, OR perhaps advance its biological
clock by several hours, it will then continue making the same directional
compensation, causing it in the novel situation to be considerably OFF. A
homing pigeon, for example, will head 90 degrees off from where it SHOULD go in
getting home, because it's had its biological clock either advanced or retarded
by 6 hours. (6X4=24 and 4X90=360) What's interesting is that even when outward
conditions change, the bird keeps using the same mechanism...so there's
something innate that's driving it, rather than the current environmental cues
it's getting as to the location of the sun, etc. I don't understand the
pheonomenon very well and am sure somebody else can explain it a lot
better!Mymm Ackley
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