BIRDS GOING HOME

 

 

LT COL NOEL ELLIS

 

23/VII/2025

 

At last, there is a rain free window. Though it has been cloudy and threatens to drizzle but the sun forces its way through to brighten up the damp and dusky day. Last ten days, the clouds have been dominating the scene playing hide and seek with the sun.

 

This has given me an opportunity to spend some time with my camera on the roof. The water plants just need an inspection, the rest of the time is available to scan the skies and say hello to my ‘avian’ friends, who after a hard days work are in a hurry to head home and roost.

 

The birds in the garden are already home as they stay within the colony. But the water birds like the Ibis’, pond herons, egrets and cormorants have a long way to go. Some of them fly in a flock, some fly individually. Home sweet home is on their mind.

 

Aeroplanes fly at a particular bearing and height as laid down in their flight path. Similarly, these birds too must be following such norms. Airline planes have CPs check points. They have to contact designated CPs while on flight. How would the birds be doing it, intrigues me?

 

In the sea there are SLOCs or Sea Lines of Communication. Lanes are designated for international travel. They follow international protocols of the sea while traversing the oceans. Things are quite sorted out.

 

With the GPS system available on their consoles, aircrafts and ships know where they are going. They not only monitor their own position themselves but are guided by so many earth stations and satellites, that it is very difficult for them to go wrong, unless factors like very bad weather/war/other natural calamities force the planes and ships to navigate manually.

 

I recall, when we used to navigate on something called the Tank Navigation Apparatus or TNA-3 mounted on the BRDMs which were part of our equipment while in the Army. Those vehicles and its navigation system have been phased out and much better systems are in place presently.

 

What I wanted to highlight is that BRDM was a Russian wheeled vehicle. One had to calculate something called the “alpha angle” by placing the vehicle in the North East direction and then fill in the coordinates in the system.

 

It was a cumbersome process, but very accurate, only if the initial data was filled in correctly. One could take detours and it could calculate the deviation. When we used to reach our destination, the coordinates used to read 000-000. One used to pop out of the cupola and check. 99.9% of the times you were within meters of your destination.

 

Russians did not use ‘degrees’. They used to measure angles in “Mils” or milliradians. One degree equals 17.78 mils. It was called a unit of angular measurement. 360 degrees equals 6400 mils. Imagine, if one was further dividing a degree into so many parts, chances of going wrong were minimal.

 

What do these birds use for navigation? How do they know the precise time and direction to move? How do they reach, where they have to with so much of accuracy.

 

This I can vouch when they fly above me at the same time, at the same height and exactly at the same place since the last few days I have tried to photograph them.

 

Do they identify landmarks on the ground? Do they sense the earth’s magnetic field? How do they tell each other where they are heading? How do they communicate amongst each other if they are going solo? How does all this work for them? I wonder!!!!!!!

 

JAI HIND

©® NOEL ELLIS