Electronic noise generated by humans may be necessary in today's society, but it is disrupting the migration of European robins.

According to Science Magazine, the study researchers, whose work is published in the journal Nature, say the electromagnetic waves from the radio is enough to alter the birds' internal piloting system. The seven-year study also suggests manmade electronic noise disrupts other animal activity as well.

The study does not, however, suggest cellphone radiation, telephone and power lines are not the problem. They found low-intensity radio waves to alter the robin's magnetosense, their pilot system that connects them to the Earth's geomagnetic field.

"We added a number of securities to protect ourselves from wishful thinking," lead study author Henrik Mouritsen a neurosensory biologist at the University of Oldenburg, told Science. "The conditions were repeated with different generations of students, and experiments were blinded on all levels."

The scientist was studying the European robin when he learned the radio waves' adverse affect on the bird unexpectedly.

"The basic experiment we do in bird navigation research is that we put birds into an orientation cage," Mouritsen told BBC News. "They are so eager to migrate, that they will jump in the direction in which they want to fly, and if you turn a static magnetic field in the horizontal plane they will start to jump in a different direction."

For the next seven years, he and his team carried out such experiments aimed at measuring the radio waves' affect. The team found frequencies between 50 kHZ and 5 mHZ were most damaging.

"That experiment has worked for more than 40 years in a number of locations," Mouritsen said. "But here in Oldenburg, we couldn't get that basic experiment to work until one day we got the idea to screen these huts on the inside with aluminium plates so the electromagnetic noise was reduced about 100 times.

"And suddenly the birds started to orientate."

Richard Holland, of Queen's University Belfast in Northern Ireland, told USA Today this was an issue he did not think much of until the study came out.

"[Electromagnetic noise] is something we hadn't considered," he said. "I will openly admit that in my case, I didn't really think that was an issue. But looking at this paper, birds are having to deal with it."