Many songbirds use the earth's magnetic field as a guide during their migrations, but radiowaves interfere with this ability. A new study has found an upper bound for the frequency that disrupts the magnetic compass.
While radio waves emitted by radio and television broadcasting and CB radio can disrupt the magnetic compass of migratory birds, those used in mobile communication networks do not because the frequencies are too high to affect their sense of orientation. This was the key finding of a new study published in the scientific journal by a team of researchers led by Professor Dr Henrik Mouritsen of the University of Oldenburg and Professor Dr Peter Hore of the University of Oxford .
Mouritsen, Hore and colleagues had already demonstrated in 2014 that electrosmog in the AM radio waveband, such as that generated by household electrical appliances, impairs migratory birds' ability to use the Earth's magnetic field for orientation . The scientists' initial theoretical prediction was that the cut-off frequency would lie somewhere between 120 and 220 megahertz in the Very High Frequency range, so the team conducted behavioural experiments with Eurasian blackcaps using different frequency bands within this range. In a study published in 2022 the researchers had already demonstrated that radio waves of a frequency between 75 and 85 megahertz interfere with the magnetic compass sense of these small songbirds.
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