why do pigeons go around in circles?

Question

there are these pigeons in my balcony which go around in circles

Answer 1

well heres what wikipedia had to say but i think they do that causethey have pea brains lol
Various species of migratory birds have evolved advanced navigation techniques, allowing them to cross the continents with ease. This facility has, with selective breeding, reached its zenith in homing pigeons.
However, disaster looms. With (we are told) tumultuous climatic change just around the corner, perhaps the traditional pointers and referents used by these creatures for eons will become so distorted as to leave them lost, and doomed to extinction.

Salvation is at hand, in the form of GPS. We should selectively breed these birds to use GPS as their navigation method. I freely admit that the GPS protocol is intricate in the extreme, but nature, unaided, has produced evolved solutions to more difficult problems in the past, albeit over a longish timescale.

A selective breeding program, possibly augmented with a dash of genetic business, should equip our feathered friends to face the uncertainties of the future.

Answer 2

Young lady, did you clip one of their wings ? !

Sorry couldn’t resist that joke.

Pigeons and other birds fly around in circles to make use of thermals.
Thermals are places where hot air is rising up from the heated ground. The rising air makes it easier for the birds to keep flying; therefore they fly around and try to stay inside the thermal.
Thermals are found all over the place. Think of them as wind that blows up and down. Bigger thermals are the reason that air plains experience turbulence, so they can be very powerful

Answer 3

Various species of migratory birds have evolved advanced navigation techniques, allowing them to cross the continents with ease. This facility has, with selective breeding, reached its zenith in homing pigeons.
However, disaster looms. With (we are told) tumultuous climatic change just around the corner, perhaps the traditional pointers and referents used by these creatures for eons will become so distorted as to leave them lost, and doomed to extinction.

Salvation is at hand, in the form of GPS. We should selectively breed these birds to use GPS as their navigation method. I freely admit that the GPS protocol is intricate in the extreme, but nature, unaided, has produced evolved solutions to more difficult problems in the past, albeit over a longish timescale.

A selective breeding program, possibly augmented with a dash of genetic business, should equip our feathered friends to face the uncertainties of the future.

Answer 4

Have you noticed the circles decreasing? In the end they will come to a stop and a falcon will eat them. And there encapsulates the life of a pigeon!

Answer 5

They get more of a view of the World. Up and down the same piece of Land will weary anyone.

Answer 6

They're probably flying around to see what foods there are. They circle, because they have missed something they've seen.

That or, they're mimicking vultures and their prey.

Answer 7

Because one leg is longer than the other, and they have to concentrate to go in a staight line.

See haggis

Answer 8

They know where their home is and never travel far from it.

I guess flying in circles is better and easier than flying in squares or rectangles

:-)

Answer 9

Cos if they didnt, they wouldnt come back, bit like the boomerang/stick thing.

Answer 10

Copying Human Beings..............