homing
n. the ability of individuals to return to an original home after traveling or being transported to a point that is a considerable distance from the home and that lacks most visual clues as to its location. In an animal-homing experiment, banded Manx shearwaters were transported 3,050 miles from their native Isle of Man, off the west coast of England, to North America; released separately, they returned to their burrows on the island within 13 days. See also navigation.