Pigeons lock their eyes in place when they are flying
New Scientist 2026-06-17 16:00:11
Context: Scientists have discovered that pigeons exhibit a unique behavior when flying, locking their eyes in place rather than moving them to scan their surroundings. This phenomenon was observed by researchers at the California Institute of Technology and the University of Birmingham, who designed a specialized eye-tracking system to study the flight patterns of common pigeons. The study's findings suggest that this behavior may be related to the pigeons' ability to control their flight and navigate through their environment.
Key Facts
- The researchers, led by Ivo Ros, designed a lightweight rig of mirrors and cameras that can be attached to the head of a common pigeon (Columba livia) as it flies, allowing them to track the bird's eye movements in real-time.
- During test flights, the head-mounted eye-tracking system revealed that pigeons increased their pupil size and adopted a fixed and consistent eye position in their heads, essentially locking their eyes in place, after take-off.
- The fixed eye position aligns with the primary horizontal axis of the birds' vision and their vestibular system, which controls balance and spatial orientation, suggesting that this behavior may help pigeons distinguish their own motion from external motion.
- The study's findings, published in Current Biology (DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2026.05.064), suggest that locking their eyes in place may help pigeons balance and navigate, but it could also leave them more vulnerable to predators by reducing their field of view.
- Pigeons have a horizontal field of view of about 340 degrees, but locking their eyes into a forward-facing position is likely to reduce this, leaving a larger blind spot behind them where they couldn’t see predators.