Re: How birds migrate

[Dora Smith <villandra@austin.rr.com>]

It says research has found that birds use some complicated system of 
calibrating certain bands of light present at sunrise and sunset with their 
inborn magnetic compass system or whatever.   It does not say how research 
established that.

I thought that birds physically learned the way.   If they've never been 
shown the route of migration they don't know how to migrate.   In fact, I 
watched a TV program on one of teh educational channels that depicted a 
program of training the young of some sort of endangered migratory bird 
closely related to a kind of game bird, to migrate.    It was quite a setup. 
They had the birds following a big helicopter bird or something for the 
entire route.

Yours,
Dora Smith
Austin, TX
tiggernut24@yahoo.com
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Guy Leahy" <xrciseguy@sbcglobal.net>
To: <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Saturday, August 12, 2006 10:48 AM
Subject: How birds migrate


> http://www.vtnews.vt.edu/story.php?relyear=2006&itemno=420