DOI: 10.5061/dryad.4tmpg4fp6
title: Data from: Changing flight and flocking dynamics of homing pigeons (<em>Columba livia d.</em>) over heterogeneous landscapes

description: Despite the prevalence of study into avian flight behaviour and
 biomechanics, there has been little research into how birds adapt their
 flight patterns in response to changes in topography and ground cover.
 Notably, there remains a gap in our understanding of how terrain cover
 impacts the energetic cost of flight. We examined several parameters
 describing the flight and flock behaviours in three cluster flocks of the
 Homing pigeon (Columba livia d.), including flap frequency as a proxy for
 energy expenditure. Each flock was flown repeatedly over a heterogeneous
 landscape of open, wooded, and urban habitats between Slough and Virginia
 Water, U.K.. Our data demonstrates that the birds adopted significantly
 slower flight and less dense flocking behaviour when traversing over
 woodland, whilst flying significantly faster with a lower flap frequency
 over urban areas. Additionally, the significant trends we observed were
 associated with temporal interaction effects describing a dissipation of
 the effects by approximately the tenth flight. We suspect this is
 demonstrative of the birds becoming increasingly familiar with the short
 length of their flights, enabling the adoption of lower-efficiency flight
 patterns. The data we recorded is invaluable for the wider field of flight
 behaviour study, comprising high-resolution and comprehensive profiles of
 a large number of birds flying in cluster flocks of different sizes, over
 multiple flights in a well-mapped area that is representative of much of
 the United Kingdom's landscape.
description: # Data from: Changing flight and flocking dynamics of homing pigeons
 (*Columba livia d.*) over heterogeneous landscapes Dataset DOI:
 [10.5061/dryad.4tmpg4fp6](10.5061/dryad.4tmpg4fp6) ## Description of the
 data and file structure This data was collected in order to investigate
 how a number of key flight and flock behavioural parameters changed during
 repeated flights of three flocks of homing pigeons (L, N, and R) over
 three categories of ground cover (Open, Wooded, and Urban). Collected
 using 5Hz GPS biologgers (for time and spatial columns) and 100Hz
 accelerometers (data used to calculate flap frequency, raw data
 incompatible with others). The values in this file represent the mean
 values of every parameter per 0.2 seconds, which was necessary during the
 data amalgamation process to match the timestamps of the GPS data. Full
 raw GPS and accelerometer datasets can be provided on request. ### Files
 and variables # Pigeon.Flights.Habitat.csv #### Description:  Full dataset
 utilised in the statistical analysis of the associated research project.
 The data is provided in its state before autocorrelation treatment,
 aggregation to one value per second, and the removal of any NA data. ####
 **Variables:** * : Index column * Bird: Unique individual bird ID number.
 * Time: UTC time codes. Note: Up to five identical values per bird, due to
 GPS loggers recording 5 values per second but not including 0.2 second
 iterations to timestamps. Refer to 'Counter' column. * Date:
 Date of flight. * Leadership: Directional correlation delay in seconds, a
 measure of individual birds' position in its flock leadership
 hierarchy. High values represent a leader individual, and low values a
 non-leader/follower. See paper for details. * mass: Bird body mass (to
 nearest 10g). * Loft: ID of bird's loft/flock. Loft L comprise 6
 birds, Loft N 12 birds, and loft R 8 birds. * Longitude: GPS longitude,
 CRS EPSG:4326 - WGS 84 * Latitude: GPS latitude, CRS EPSG:4326 - WGS 84 *
 Layer: Ground cover category, data taken from DEFRA Phase 4 Living England
 Habitat Map. See paper for details. * ff: (Flap frequency). Mean number of
 wingbeats conducted per second, calculated using accelerometer z-axis
 oscillations. See paper for details. * q1: Flap frequency upper quartile.
 * q3: Flap frequency lower quartile. * Groupsize: Number of birds flying
 cohesively as a flock following the flight's start. See paper for
 details. * Absolute: (Absolute flock spread). Cumulative distance in
 metres between frontmost and backmost individuals and between leftmost and
 rightmost. See paper for details. * Distcent: (Distance to centroid).
 Individual bird's distance in metres to the calculated flock
 centroid. See paper for details. * Flightspeed: Estimated individual
 flight speed in metres per second. * Counter: Integer value counting up
 the time passed within individual flights. '1' represents the
 start of an individual bird's flight. This was used as the primary
 temporal column, due to the issues with the 'Time' column. *
 Iteration: Integer value counting up the number of flights conducted by
 each flock, based on the 'Date' column. '1' represents
 the first flight conducted by a flock/loft. * Frontback: Individual's
 distance in metres to the flock centroid parallel to the direction of
 travel. Positive values indicate distance ahead of centroid, and negative
 distance behind. See paper for details. * Leftright: Individual's
 distance in metres to the flock centroid perpendicular to the direction of
 travel. Positive values indicate distance left of centroid, and negative
 distance to the right. See paper for details. * Position: Binary value
 denoting whether a bird was in front of or behind the centroid, based on
 the 'Frontback' column. See paper for details.