Homing in Pigeons with Impaired Vision

Abstract

In order to test the importance of vision in homing pigeons, their vision was impaired by frosted contact lenses. Pigeons wearing such lenses seemed unable to recognize artificial landmarks at 6-m distance. Nevertheless, most birds homed from distances of 15 km, and some even from 130-km distance. This result indicates that, contrary to common expectation, vision need not play an essential role in homing.