How Do Birds Find Their Way Home? | Paranormal Pigeons | Real Wild

An investigation into the science and mystery behind how animals find their way home, observing pigeons' almost supernatural sense of direction.

Content licensed by Icon Films to Little Dot Studios.

#RealWild #Documentary

[janjans]

I’ve just made friends with and feed my rooftop pigeons, I started to think that they were following me on some of my walks … i found this video fascinating and sketched a pigeon while watching and listening. Thank you. 🕊️

[emily-clark]

My goodness ! Pigeons are actually fascinating creatures ! They truly are amazing !! My uncle has pigeons, and every year, he'll go for a ride with his 33 pigeons, let them go from one location to another, and it's always a race on who gets home first 😅. He lives in Glasgow and the further he did in distance with his pigeons was Aberdeen, back to Glasgow, which is over 150 miles. He was really stressed out, of course, but they all came home, safe and sound, thank God. He always loses the race, obviously. You can't beat pigeons 😅😅... By the way, if I may, my uncle tells me that when he releases the pigeons, no matter the location, they'll circle around a few of times and then, zoooom, they'll fly home on a more or less straight line and, again, more or less. Truly astounding and bewildering. I'd love to know how they map their way home, so to speak... Sometimes, I wonder if they have this "echolocation" ability, even if I've read that they apparently aren't able to echolocate but still, makes you wonder, doesn't it ?
Have a good evening 🙏 everyone 😊 ☮️

[harikfreefly]

I love birds more than any thing else in this planet.
They are beautiful, smart, clever

[emillianatalluva]

Pigeon are the best animals in the world. The love I have for pigeon is unconditional.

[johndolabaille]

i love pigeons iam 64 years old from the age of 8 years old i .kept pigeons .i enjoyed the experiment with the barge in the wate ri beleive he should have tried a pigeon nesting on eggs at the beg
ining of the documentary i saw a dog with an amazing bond for its master finding its master pigeons know if you love them too when i was about 20 years old i gave a friend a squeaker never was outside the coop when he released it after a week it came home a distance of 2 miles

[DevilDog]

The egg cracking a bit more each time they showed an interview with that one guy was awesome

[MaryJane-eneh]

And I think even future bird generations could find their way to an old home, of one of their parents or grandparents.. Even if they personally hadn't ever live there.. But knew it was a safe place to go.. Perhaps they can sence people(genetically inherited memories).. When in need of aid, they know where to go... Pigeons are easily my favorite animal!! Their so sweet!! Even the feisty one's!! Lol

[ChandraSekhar-dnef]

Greatly Written, Narrated, Edited and Directed.. 💯/💯

[MaryJane-eneh]

I absolutely love how they all have their own personalities!! It's so adorable!! Lol

[notoriousqueenpigeon]

Beautiful when they are tossed fr race. I love them so much, my birds are the only reason I go outside in the winter.

[dragonite]

It's a wired thing, pigeon keeping will never be a one time thing, even if you get rid of all yer birds u will always get into keeping them again ....it's a beautiful thing

[Tranitosaur]

They use every teqnique, I think. They use sight and memory first on familiar places as it's easier I think. They use magnetic if far away and on unfamiliar places. When they are like a bit far but not that far that they remember the smell of some parts, they recognise and use that till they come to a part where they recognise visual vise, and then do the first step. Idk, my theory lol
Like humans use eyes mainly to get back home, but if we were blindfolded, we'll use touch and other senses. I think magnetic and smell is like their other senses idk

[Abuwesamful]

I raised pigeons since I was a child, for more than 15 years. and I think they use the visual landmarks whenever they are available, and as a proof, we have some huge trees in front of my home, and one day we cut them, and the pigeons took longer time to realise that, they were skimming above the neighbourhood and increase their attitude and increase the radius of the circle with each round, until they learn it and then and surprisingly they made it home.

I found out that, pigeons have very good learning ability, and they fly early in the morning to far places more than I could imagine. In fact, pigeons builds a very nice visual map in their heads, according to the attitude and the shape of the city from the sky and they treat it as a puzzle that they can solve even with partial information.

My idea might be crazy, but I think the good pigeons could even measure the air pressure as they search for their homes, and they build an estimation on which direction might lead to the right place.

Wow! I love it!!! I use to raise pigeons when I was in primary school. I would love to do it again!

[josephcamacho]

You moved the loft. But the loft did not have any mate waiting for the bird to return. Try the experiment with breeding pairs then moving the loft. See if the connection is with the mate in the Loft. The difference between connection with living creature and a non living object.

[skycastlechronicles]

Niiiice! First pigeon perspective video Ive seen, very lovely!! 👌🙏

[PaloXanthos]

One time a white with spots feral pigeon was given to me. It stayed over night in a cage separated from my other pigeons as I could not tell if it was carrying any disease or not.
This story took place in Athens in the 80s. Athens from air is a cement labyrinth with many thousands of feral pigeons as well as 100s of Vouta pigeon keepers.
Next morning I loaded her in my car, with some other lesser pigeons, and gave all of them to a person 10 miles away. I hate to admit they were all given to be eaten.
But when I came back home ..she was there.. she had escaped, as I learned later, from that guys handling and returned faster than me..
I kept her for long time simply out of respect. I even flew her with the Voutas.
She eventually was taken by the peregrine a couple of years after. But how she found a place on which she only lived on night, is a mystery

[valkyrie]

My young pet pigeon goes on outings with us. (Hiking, berry picking, flea markets) It is not uncommon for her to fly off when we arrive, but she inevitably circles back and lands near us, and our dogs. She must know where our home is, when in the car she is on the console, or my shoulder, watching everything with interest. But if we're out in the car she flies to me. That leads me to think it has to do with scent. We sleep on my sheepskins on the bed, bird and dog as well. She coos and does the vertical wing flips of delight when she burrows her breast down into sheepskins. She knows our scent very well.

[colorfulbirdsanimals]

Beautiful video and beautiful pigeons thanks for this video

[Tigerworldindia]

For me its combination of everything, for shorter distance they rely on visual cues and the overall feeling of the place they live
But for mid and long distance they rely on smell, air pressure, air direction, sun direction,
when you left your pigeon at a different place firstly they circle around, basically figuring out a specific direction using all that mentioned above and proceed their journey in that direction and if in the journey they found something similar to their home, they again circle around that place, they run a list of checks on that place and if it doesn't match their home

they proceed in the direction they figured out in the beginning, during their journey they constantly look for visual cues as well,