How do birds navigate? When they face north, their brains do something incredible. - Big Think

Off the coast of Awashima Island, a two month-old streaked shearwater chick huddled against its siblings. The weather had been getting colder. Soon, the white-and-brown-winged family would navigate over 4,000 miles of foreign terrain and featureless ocean until arriving in Australia. For now, however, the vacation must wait. A group of neuroscientists and ecologists from Doshisha University and Nagoya University approached the burrow. They had questions about the chick’s travel plans. Most notably, how does it know where it’s going? It’s not the first time scientists have demanded answers from birds. In 1942, William Keeton’s parents gave him his first homing pigeons for his ninth birthday. He cherished the regal bird and forwent chores and school work to train the bird. In races, however, the bird rarely won. Such shame at such a young age can only drive a person to do one thing: become a scientist. One thing led to another, and in 1965, Keeton — then a professor of biology at Cornell

Off the coast of Awashima Island, a two month-old streaked shearwater chick huddled against its siblings. The weather had been getting colder. Soon, the white-and-brown-winged family would navigate over 4,000 miles of foreign terrain and featureless ocean until arriving in Australia. For now, however, the vacation must wait. A group of neuroscientists and ecologists from Doshisha University and Nagoya University approached the burrow. They had questions about the chick’s travel plans. Most notably, how does it know where it’s going? It’s not the first time scientists have demanded answers from