Navigational Theory 8: Infrasound

This theory is based upon tests showing that homing pigeons can hear infrasounds as low in frequency as 3 cycles per minute, and can detect laboratory simulations of infrasonic signals. Douglas Boynton Quine has spoken many times on this topic, and is well-versed on the subject. He suggests that infrasounds may provide a potential navigational cue for homing pigeons.

Jonathan Hagstrum (U.S. Geological Survey) also made an observation regarding the affects of infrasound upon homing pigeons, and developed similar conclusions regarding the import of hearing and homing pigeon navigation. Hagstrum's observation was punctuated by a "smash" pigeon race that occurred in Europe back in 1997:

"On Sunday, June 29, 1997, a great race was held to celebrate the centenary of the Royal Pigeon Racing Association. More than 60,000 homing pigeons were released at 6:30 AM in the morning from a field in Nantes (southern France), flying to lofts all over southern England 400 to 500 miles away. By 11:00 AM the majority of the racing birds had made it out of France and were over the English Channel. They should have arrived at their lofts by early afternoon. They didn't.

A few thousand of the birds straggled in over the next few days. Most were never seen again. In pigeon racing terms, the loss of so many birds was practically unheard of, a disaster. Any one bird could get lost, but tens of thousands?

Hagstrum, in studying this event, noticed an odd fact. At the very same time the racing pigeons were crossing the Channel, 11:00 AM, the Concorde supersonic transport (SST) airliner was flying along the Channel on its morning flight from Paris to New York. In flight the SST generates a shock wave that pounds down toward the earth, a carpet of sound almost a hundred miles wide. The racing pigeons flying below the Concorde could not have escaped the intense wave of sound. The birds that did eventually arrive at their lofts were lucky enough to be very slow racers -- they were still south of the Channel when the SST passed over, ahead of them." *Source: http://txtwriter.com/Onscience/Articles/pigeons.html



Here are just a few of the works of Quine:

• 1979 Kreithen ML, Quine DB. "Infrasound detection by the homing pigeon: A behavioral audiogram." J. Comparat Physiology 129: 1-4
• 1979 Quine DB. Infrasound detection and frequency discrimination in the homing pigeon. Ph.D. Dissertation, Cornell University
• 1979 Quine DB. "Birds and infrasound." J. Acoustical Society America 66: 603
• 1981 Quine DB, Kreithen ML. "Frequency shift discrimination: Can pigeons locate infrasounds by Doppler shifts?" J. Comparative Physiology 141: 153-l55
• 1982 Quine DB. "Infrasounds: A potential navigational cue for homing pigeons." pp. 373-376 in F. Papi and H. G. Wallraff (eds), Avian Navigation Springer Verlag: Berlin & Heidelberg
• Jan 1983 Physiology Seminar, Tulane Medical School: "Pigeons hear 8 octaves below the range of human hearing: Could it help them home?"
• Mar 1987 Ornithology (guest lecture), Ecology, Ethology, & Evolution, University of Illinois: "Sensory basis of bird navigation."
• Mar 1987 Ecology, Ethology, & Evolution, University of Illinois: "The infrasound sense of homing pigeons."