UBC Study Equips Pigeons with Backpacks to Track Eye Movements in Flight

University of British Columbia researchers fitted homing pigeons with miniature backpacks containing a tiny computer, head-mounted cameras, and sensors to record eye movements during flight. The full system weighed about 27 grams, with the computer component roughly half the size of a credit card.

Anthony Lapsansky, who led the work as a postdoctoral fellow at UBC, sewed falconry hoods of varying sizes to secure the cameras and constructed small backpacks for the remaining gear.

Researchers first placed fake backpacks on the birds for weeks, gradually increasing complexity to prevent panic. The team released a flock of about 16 homing pigeons along a route the birds already knew. Footage showed the pigeons made slow, subtle eye movements that may provide higher-resolution views of their surroundings.

The birds also turned both eyes inward while landing on a perch, enabling binocular viewing. The findings differ from a separate study published in Current Biology last month by the California Institute of Technology. That work, which followed pigeons over shorter distances and closer to objects, reported that the birds largely kept their eyes fixed.

David Bird, an emeritus professor of wildlife biology at McGill University who was not involved in the UBC research, noted the UBC pigeons flew farther and higher. Lapsansky said many drones rely on rigid cameras and sensors to gauge speed, direction, and proximity.

He suggested engineers could apply moving cameras to autonomous drones to gather additional environmental data in the same way birds do.