Captive studies can show that the machinery works, not that it is used in the wild
A captive orientation experiment typically puts a bird in a controlled setup and records which way it tries to go when a cue such as a magnetic field or a star pattern is changed. That tells you the bird can detect the cue and responds to it. It does not tell you whether the same bird, flying over real terrain with wind, weather, and landmarks, would rely on that cue or on something else. The gap is between capacity and actual use.
The Asian Houbara work speaks to this gap only indirectly. Captive-bred birds were tracked by satellite after release, and their migration timing, direction, and stopover behavior were compared with wild birds [1]. The finding that captive-bred birds showed wild-like migration behavior is consistent with orientation abilities surviving captivity and being put to use in free flight, but it measures the outcome of migration rather than the cues chosen along the way [1].
The teal work flags the comparison without settling it
The blue-winged teal study examined migratory behavior in captive birds and also refers to wild-caught birds during migration, including expectations about departure days and the cues birds might use when flying northwest in spring [2]. What it does not do is explicitly compare cue use between captive and wild conditions or discuss whether captive results generalize [2]. So it is useful as a reminder that captive and wild migrants are both studied, but it does not close the loop between them.
Why a behavioral match is weaker evidence than it looks
If a released captive-bred bird migrates at roughly the right time and in roughly the right direction, several explanations are possible. It may be using the same cues a wild bird uses. It may be following social cues from other birds, as the Houbara abstract hints when it mentions social cues [1]. Or it may be relying on a simpler rule that happens to produce a wild-like route. A match in timing and direction therefore suggests that orientation generalizes in a broad sense, but it does not pin down the mechanism.
For a general reader, the practical takeaway is to treat captive orientation results as evidence about what a bird is capable of sensing and responding to, and to treat free-ranging tracking results as evidence about what birds actually do. The Houbara comparison links the two at the level of migration behavior [1]; the teal study shows the two research settings exist side by side without a direct bridge [2]. Neither establishes that a cue demonstrated in a cage is the cue a wild migrant depends on.
What would actually answer the question
A direct answer would need birds tested for a cue in captivity and then tracked in free migration while that cue is experimentally altered or monitored, so the same individuals are followed across both settings. The Houbara design comes closest in spirit, because the same captive-bred birds were followed after release and compared with wild conspecifics on migration metrics [1]. But cue use itself was not the measured variable, so the generalization remains plausible rather than demonstrated.
Sources used in this answer
Comparative migration strategies of wild and captive‐bred Asian Houbara Chlamydotis macqueenii
Satellite tracking showed that captive-bred Asian Houbara bustards displayed wild-like migration behavior after release, with migration timing, direction, and stopover behavior compared between captive-bred and wild birds.
Migratory behavior of captive blue-winged teals (Anas discors)
The study examined migratory behavior in captive blue-winged teals and referenced wild-caught birds during migration, but did not explicitly compare or discuss whether cue use generalizes between captive and wild conditions.