Meeting Abstract
Homing pigeons (Columba livia) have a large panoramic visual field extending over 340 degrees. Directing and stabilising their visual system during flight is essential for flight control, extracting important navigational cues from the environment and anti-predator vigilance. However, pigeons have only a limited range of eye movement during flight and instead rely largely on their flexible necks to stabilise their gaze. To investigate the gaze strategy adopted during free flight, pigeons were fitted with a head-mounted inertial measurement unit and GPS device and released from sites within their familiar area. This setup allowed us to characterise head direction and saccadic head movement in relation to their track over the ground. In this talk I will present the findings of an analysis of gaze direction in relation to navigational features of the environment.
