Birds May Use Quantum Mechanics to Navigate

How many of us take birds for granted? When they are near, we hear their singing and notice them flitting about. When they migrate away for the season, we seldom notice their absence. Yet many birds migrate thousands of miles (or kilometers) twice a year—returning to the exact location they left six months earlier. Some species of hummingbirds (about the size of a small fig), migrate over 3,000 miles (5,000 km) from Mexico and Central America to Alaska, twice a year—flying as many as 500 miles (833 km) per day (LearningBirdWatching.com). Yet, how do these tiny creatures navigate so precisely without satellites—some actually returning to within centimeters of where they departed from months earlier (The Guardian, March 23, 2025)?

Interestingly, many migrating birds travel at night or alone, so they are not learning navigation skills from their parents. As the growing field of bird migration is discovering, some birds “use the Earth’s magnetic field to find their way, and it is likely that at least part of the biological mechanism that allows them to do this can be explained through quantum mechanics.” Scientists are still refining their theories, but many feel they are getting closer to understanding how birds use magnetic fields to geolocate. As one scientist stated in an attempt to explain the phenomenal feat, “it amounts to an incredible feat of quantum sensing”—performed not in an advanced laboratory, but “in the messy organic environment of a bird’s eye.”

While scientists grapple with the incredible molecular and cellular technology to be found in bird biology, they cling to the mistaken idea that this technology, far ahead of anything human beings have yet developed, happened through random and unguided forces. Once again, mindless evolution is attributed far more intelligence than humans—which makes little sense and runs contrary to evidence. How long will humanity deny the “invisible attributes” of a real God that are clearly seen throughout His creation (Romans 1:20)? To learn more about the confounding intricacy of God’s creation, read “Tiny Bird, Big Miracle!”