I'm not an ornithologist but I think birds integrate some onboard magnetic compass sensors. So, it would be interesting if they can pick up the magnetic part of an electromagnetic wave of the radio. Seems very low likelihood but would be cool.
Edit to add https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/08/230828130356.h... . What frequency were you at? Seems they may actually be listening.
"Picking up" and "discerning useful data" are very different.
I'm not even talking about "deciphering". Even knowing that energy in a certain bandwidth means planes about to leave seems a large jump - and a radio tuned to a station is likely an order of magnitude more stringent than an animal's sensory abilities.
Indeed. Not to mention that the frequency is probably used for many other types of communication than announcing the use of that specific taxiway.
Probably 124.510 Mhz. That is the current airport frequency there and it is unlikely to have changed since.
Very cool article. But it sounds like that would be out of the likely range?
That's close enough to the cutoff that I could see it being in range maybe for the right species or even a slight mutation/evolution. Even if all they know is "I know North but a little less definitively than usual", that could be enough.
I'd imagine the fact they are high frequency rather than constant field would make it impossible