Führende und geführte Individuen in heimkehrenden Brieftaubengruppen

Summary

By means of a helicopter, flocks of 5 homing pigeons were followed on their way home in order to study the question whether there are leading and led animals, or if the flight formations vary at random. In both cases reported here and in most of the others the random-hypothesis could be rejected. Although the formations during the flight were rather variable, 1 or 2 pigeons seemed more or less to lead the whole flock.