Abstract
Inexperienced pigeons from four home sites in (northern and southern) Germany and from two home sites in Italy were released at distances of 20–30 km in the four cardinal directions. Initial bearings were considerably better homeward-oriented in Italy than in Germany. This was also true in parallel releases from every two sites 22–25 km NNW and SSE of two further lofts, one near Pisa and the other in the area of Munich. In these latter experiments, which all were conducted with pigeons of equal (German) origin, homing success was also proved to be much better in the southern country. It is assumed that some environmental conditions, possibly connected with the different climates, are responsible for the differences in orientational performance.
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Foà, A., Wallraff, H.G., Ioalé, P., Benvenuti, S. (1982). Comparative Investigations of Pigeon Homing in Germany and Italy. In: Papi, F., Wallraff, H.G. (eds) Avian Navigation. Proceedings in Life Sciences. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-68616-0_23
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