Dan Luke wrote:

"Gary Drescher" wrote:

pigeons ... follow roads.


That doesn't mean they're using pilotage. The pigeons are carried along
the roads in cars to the release points. How would they recognize a
route from the air they had traveled (and probably not seen) only on the
ground?

Birds are capable of magnetic navigation.
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF3/345.html
Most likely the pigeons are able to sense and store the route they
travel to the release point, and then retrace it home.

But it was reported that the 'follow roads' navigation was *not* used on
the first flight home. It was only used when the birds flew the same
course repeatedly allowing them to learn the pattern of roads.